Pretty Graphs And A New Direction

Ah, things always look better after a night's sleep and I'm back to being positive again! My bad run last night really got to me because I felt I was playing solid but variance was kicking me square in the balls again! I am pleased though how I made the decision to call it a night and not play again until today because in the past I have carried on playing when I'm not focussed and that leads to bigger losses and chasing money.

Pud Jr is currently trying to make the biggest mess he possibly can with all his toys, Cbeebies is on the box and I've been flicking through my database to see how much of a donk I actually am! According to Poker EV I am "owed" around $30 so I wasn't as in front as I thought but this doesn't take into account coolers like my KK vs AA or my J9s vs Q9s on a Q9J board against a weak LAG but it does show I've been sucked out on to the tune of over a buy-in at NL25. Now I know this isn't a great amount but it still pisses me off as I like my Poker Tracker to have all green figures!

I love 6-max for the action involved and the fact that the weak players are horrific but the variance is massive in these games especially when, like last night, I sat at a table and it turned out every single villain was using PAHUD and was a 2+2 member! Talk about wank table selection! So after a brief chat with Spunk Sock I am going to go back to NL10 and play Full Ring, probably 6 tables, and play my usual TAG game which should be very profitable against these donks. My bankroll is currently $301.54 so I amnicely rolled for NL10 and I will take a shot, but probably drop 2 tables, when I hit $350, dropping back down to NL10 if I drop back to the $300 mark. It's time to play my A-game consistantly again and not worry about beats as they happen and bad beats happen more to a good player as we get our money in good more often!

Anyway, here's my stats for 6-max and some pretty graphs!

I'm not going to get to play until about midnight tonight with me having Pud Jr today and then I'm working from 1900-2300 but I still plan on hitting 500-750 hands before I go to sleep and then I'll be getting up at a reasonable time tomorrow and hitting 2k hands before I start work at 1500. This should then keep me on course for 20-30k hands for the month.

Thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables.

We Shall Rename This Month Pudtober!

Pinch, punch, first of the month, no return. Remember saying that as a kid? Well September has been and gone and we are now into the tenth month of the year, how fucking quick has this year gone? This month is going to be perfect to start rebuilding things because not only is it a start of a new month it's also the first day of the week and with my slightly obsessive nature the first of the month starting on a Monday is fantastic. Don't ask! I have a really good feeling about this month for some reason and I'm hoping to make it my most successful month yet in poker.

As expected I didn't play much since my last post, I know I said I was going to play a bunch of SnG's but I couldn't motivate myself for them. I take my hat off to these SnG grinders who 12 table for 8 hours a day because I just couldn't do it. I did manage a whole five of the bitches though and ran like God by winning three and coming 2nd in the other two! I would have won the other two but I ran 99 into AA and J7 into Q7 on a 77xxx board. Still a 236% ROI and a nice little $27 profit for 40 minutes work isn't to be sniffed at. I also entered the Daily Double MTT's on Full Tilt in the early hours on Sunday morning. The buy in was $10+$2 and there was a bonus for cashing in both, highest aggregate finish, making two final tables and winning both. Both games kick off at the same time, which was about 0200, with the A tourney having 1,485 runners and the B 1,331 meaning the top 216 were paid with prizes ranging from around $15 to a very nice $2.8k!

Things were going very average from the off, the play was pretty loose and my plan was to see a few flops early and hit a monster but I couldn't even do that as I was dealt total turd for cards so I sat tight and hoped to get paid off with some premium hands. My heart wasn't in it by the first break and I kept nodding off and I eventually busted in the B game in about 700th and I don't remember how. As I knew I wouldn't be getting a double cash bonus I decided to open my game up a bit in the A game and it worked a treat. I was raising at least twice an orbit and when I was eventually played back at I seemed to have the goods. I won a huge pot about 2.5 hours in when I rivered a King after making a squeeze play with AK and was against 99 and AQ. the board came out 47QJK and I was chip leader with around 350 left, with a great image, being hit in the face with the deck and a table full of average stacks. I could smell a final table appearance! Towards the third break I was really flagging so actually sat out for the last ten minutes and took a 15 minute power nap (including the break). However, the Poker Gods (amen) do not take this action lightly and decided to fuck me over well and truely. Very first hand after the break I get TT in the BB. 2nd in chips villain, who I re-stolen from a number of times, makes it 4xBB from MP1. All fold and I 3-bet him once again, this time he flat calls. Flop come T5J and to keep up with my image I bet out 2/3's pot and villain makes it 3x my bet. Now I'm hoping here he has QQ-AA and is going to give me a monster stack or he's playing back at me with AJ-AK. I push and he snap calls and tables fucking fish hooks the cunt! No case ten for me and I bust about 270, about 50 from the money. Sick! I win that hand and I have twice the chips as anyone else and I really had a chance for a big big score. Set over set, meh. Wanker of a game!

I played 4 tables of NL10 6 max last night after my barshift and managed to reap a nice profit of $19 from about an hours play. The standard of play is awful in these and I might have to re-think playing full ring if this is what the play is like. I feel "in the zone" recently and I'm very confident and happy about my game and I'm looking forward to hitting 20-30k hands this month. If I can manage that i will delighted especially as I bet I've only played 30-50k hands all year so far! I know I have the game now to make some decent money from poker, not millions far from it, but I know I could make what I earn now in my day job if I had the right bankroll and now that my attitude towards everything has changed. I really think I can have a $500 month and a further $2-300 in rakeback which would be fucking brilliant! I'm going to use a 20 buy in rule but start to take shots when I have 12 buy ins for the next step up, dropping back down if I drop 2 buy ins. By doing this I should be able to progress more quickly with less risk of going crazy and losing a chunk of my roll. I have around $125 in my Full Tilt account and once Poker Heaven stop fucking about and give me my withdrawal of $155 I should only be about $20 short from taking a shot at NL25. I borrowed £50 ($95) from my bank account which I could do with putting back but I might just cut my spending on stuff during the next couple of weeks so I can keep it as part of my roll.

I'm not going to get to play tonight as I am meeting one of my best mates, Brian, after work. I met Brian when I was 18 and was put on despatching at O2 when I came back from the sick after breaking my arm for the first time. We hit it off right away and we've been like brothers ever since! I've not seen him for nearly a year now but we just slot right back into the groove straight away like we'd seen each other everyday, he really is a great guy. With everyone I know I seem to go from just talking to them to being mates that can say anything to each other, call each other cunts etc with no in between bit, it's weird. Anyway, he's the proud owner of a Suzuki GSXR-600 so I have dug my protective gear out and if the weather holds up he's going to take me for a spin on it. I must admit I got some funny looks this morning with my huge bag, armoured jacket and carrying a fluorescent Simpons helmet onto a packed train! LOL! When we've been for a ride we're just going to get a few tinnies, a takeaway and talk bollocks etc. Really looking forward to it, I'm a simple creature!

I've also taken the first step towards getting myself back on track career wise. I know I won't be a poker pro any time soon, probably not ever, so I need to maximise my earning potential and to do that I need to gain more qualifications. So I have registered to study with the Open University again, this time opting to gain a degree in Information and Communication Technology, hopefully going through and completing a masters along the way. It's going to be a long road but should be rewarding at the end of it. I start in February 2008 and the Open University are going to pay for the course, give me a £250 grant and pay my broadband connection too! The joys of being poor. Once the initial stages are over with I plan to drop my hours here to part-time, devote more time to studying my degree and by this stage I should be able to make £500-600 a month through pokes to supplement my lack of hours during the day. If I can do this I will be delighted I can tell you. Fingers crossed!

So, no challange as such for this month, just a totally fresh start and earn as much as I can! If it's as good a month as I hope it is I'm going to rename this month Pudtober!

Thanks for reading and best of luck at the real and virtual felt!

Now For Something Completely Different

Well I managed to ship the total of $16 to the Full Tilt fish last night whilst showing Pudding Dad NLHE ring games. We initially sat at a FR NL10 game with the idea of showing him what hands to ditch in the various positions of the table and let him know the reasoning behind each call, raise or fold and also to try to assign hand ranges to villains. To say we were card dead was an understatement, even my dad said he understands why I at least 4 table when the cards aren't falling but I also didn't play too good. Tiltsock sat at our table for a short while before leaving and I joined a NL25 game soon after, mainly to show my dad the difference in aggression. This is where I lost $10 with 97 against a tricky LAG on a xxQ77 board and he had J7. Meh. I played it horrible but dad seemed to learn that you can use position more than cards especially in NL.

So what am I planning for this weekend? Well poker playing time is going to be at a premium due to me having Pudding Jr tonight and until 1800 tomorrow then work from 1900-0000 Saturday and then 1500-2300 Sunday but I still plan to play a bunch......of SnG's! Why I hear you ask when all I've talked about is 20-30k hands of FR during October and that itself is the reason why. Basically I don't want to play cash until Monday so that I can jump straight in all refreshed without my tired weekend play playing on my mind and log a couple of really big sessions. I've also downloaded a 30 day trial of SnG Wizard which I really want to try out too because my knowledge of ICM and optimal bubble play is very average and I'd like to improve this and apparently this software goes through your hand histories and highlights problems, especially around bubble time and lets you know if you should have pushed or folded depending on your opponents calling ranges.

Pud Jr is usually tired out now by around 2100 due to school and running round like a dickhead with me so I may fire up a set when he goes to the land of nod. He usually goes to bed much earlier at his mum's house but he gets excited at mine plus I let him stay up longer than normal with me not seeing him much. Anyway, the plan is to play between 50-100 SnG's at the $2.25 level between now and Monday and analyze each one where I finished the final 5 using SnGWiz and see if I can increase my ROI somewhat by improving my bubble play. I plan to play a minimum of 6 tables at a time but I've not decided if I will play turbo's or standard speed games yet or whether I'll tile or cascade the game windows but that's a choice I'll make when push comes to shove but I'm edging towards the turbo donk fests just so I get to the bubble situations quicker and so I can fit more games in. Hopefully I'll learn something new and turn a nice little profit at the same time and be nice and refresh and in cash game mode for Monday!

Elsewhere, I have been getting addicted to the gayness that is Facebook, I can't leave the fucker alone! I restarted one with my proper name and so far I have 20+ buddies added and loads of really gay add-ons but it's fun and passes my lunch break quicker than usual plus I've managed to get back in contact with old work and school mates and even former Mrs P has signed up for an account! Talking of former Mrs P, she told me that she read Amatay's shagging post the other day and thought it was a really good post so you might have a new regular reader to add to your collection you Hammers supporting arrogant fish!

I have a mini challange for you. Watch this cartoon a couple of times in a row and this one too and try not to sing them for the rest of the night.

That's all for now folks, life is good and hopefully it'll be better when I've been owning the $2.25 donks this weekend! Have a good one boys and girls.

Is It All Starting To Come Together?

I read dozens of blogs of blogs on a daily basis. Some are fellow micro-donks, some mid range players and some who play nose bleed stakes poker where one big blind is more than my entire bankroll! A lot of the comments left by players like myself on the blogs of the NL200/400 regulars ask the blog owner when did they realise they were a winning player or was there a clear point where everything they'd learned and tried to put into practice actually seemed to work. You can see clearly on some of the blogs when the change from breaking even to becoming a winner happened. I'm starting to think you'll be able to see that on my little blog from now.

I'm in the process of making the transition from 6 max NL to full ring for a few reasons. Firstly, I find it easier to multitable FR and can play 4-6 games comfortably where when I play SH I don't play my best if I have more than 2 tables open. Also, I am honest about my ability as a poker player and if I find myself on a table where there is someone clearly better than me but I don't want to leave that table because there are a few donators there I find it easier to "hide" from this player at FR than I do at SH for obvious reasons. Thirdly, the vast majority of micro and low stakes players do not have a clue about position and how hand value change with position and with me being pretty clued up on this I have a major advantage. Again, a lot of FR players are very weak, have tried SH and failed and come back to FR as it's less aggressive but have brought many bad habits with them from SH games. Finally, I am wanting to try live cash at some point so this is in theory my training!

Anyway, I really feel like everything is coming together at long last. I am playing some brilliant poker, for micro stakes, making some solid reads and acting on them and I'm really enjoying my poker again at the moment. Yeah I'm still making some ridiculous mistakes which need ironing out but I'm experimenting with plays and bet sizing and for the whole it is paying off. I've played 3.5k hands over the past week and a half and I'm running at over 20PTBB/100 and it would be more had I not been stacked once with QQ, once with JJ and half a buyin last night with AK on an AK4 board. Of course some of this is down to our favourite bitch, variance, but looking at my Poker Tracker I don't seem to running insanely hot, rather just getting maximum value out of my hands and losing less when I lose. Reading blogs, books and forums I realised I was missing out on a lot of value by under betting my hands on most streets, especially the river, but I have altered my game somewhat and I'm so far reaping the benefits.

I put this down not only to the forums and blogs but to the fact I have really cut down my boozing and lifestyle changes. My old routine was to get home to the pub, have a couple of pints, go upstairs and get changed or whatever, crack open a can of cider and play poker whilst drinking. Drinking whilst playing poker is like drinking and playing pool. You get to a level where everything is great, you have that confidence where you're invincible but then it all goes tits up as you get pissed and I was getting pissed every night and not playing very well at all. Now I have a beer when I get home and that's it until I have something to eat later on in the evening and I'm seeing so much more at the tables. Also, a lot of my life stresses aren't bothering me as much anymore, they're still there and they eat at me but I can control them because I'm not depressing my brain with alcohol and other shit all the time. It's fucking great! I'm really looking forward to October and I'm hoping to play between 20-30k hands which if I 4 table on Full Tilt is around 3 hours per day. If I stick to my guns I fully expect to be bankrolled for NL50 by the end of October and I'm aiming for at least $500 profit and I should generate around $300 in rakeback too which would be fucking brilliant and might allow me to pay a bond on a flat and keep my bankroll almost untouched. Here's hoping!

I'll be playing tonight but only one table because Pudding Dad wants me to go through NL with him just to see the thinking behind certain hands and stuff. He's been playing a bit of FL but I'm trying to convince him to move over to the dark side and rinse some fish! I'm not expert but I can give him more than a few pointers and because he's an expert Bridge player he should pick it up pretty quickly I should imagine. So Pudding Mum is making my tea for me so I will be well fed then when she toddles off to work me and my Paw will be hitting the tables on my Full Tilt account so stay the fuck away Spunk Sock! Only downside is I'm going to miss Billy Piper looking smoking hot playing a tart in her new drama. She can't act for shit and looks a bit like a monkey but I definitely would especially when she's in her benders and all her get up. How the fuck Chris Evans rattled that I will never know. Oh I do, money!

I couldn't think of a picture to go with this post so Milla makes a return, the filthy bitch. I've also developed a thing again for Kelly Brook even though her chap is a big fucking puff so might have to add some pics of that tart too!

Thanks for checking in on this uber-confident Pudding! Updates on Pudding Dad and other shit tomorrow!

Ring Games And Pizza And Dwarves...Oh My!

I was so close to totally jacking in poker last night you wouldn't believe. I've hit a bad spell of variance and I'm managing to double the effects of running bad by playing like a cunt! I don't know what is the matter with me but I'm making some God awful decisions as of late and my confidence is shattered and I've lost all focus. Usually I'd laugh it off but despite normal life being pretty good at the minute, online life is fucking wank.

I entered the $15k Guaranteed on Stars last night along with Amafish and Cogsgoigne from Raise The River. It has 10 minute blinds and is only $11 to enter so thought why not, as did 2060 odd other fish. Nothing much happened but I caught a few hands and somehow managed to get up to around 3k with blinds at 25/50. I then made a play which cost me nearly all my chips. A donk open min-raises in MP1 and I look down at 66 and decide to raise things up to 300, planning to c-bet or come over the top on most flops representing a big pair, all fold to MP1 who calls. Flop come Ad4s3s. Villain checks and I bet 500 into a 675 pot. Villain then pushes for 1965 meaning it costs me 1465 to call giving me more than 2/1. I know he hasn't got an ace, I just know from watching him he's doing this with some sort of draw maybe even something like 55 (he was a donk) and I call. He shows KsTs and I'm ahead but a dog in the hand. Turn is a slag of diamonds giving him about a million outs and of course the river brings the Jack of spades to complete his flush but also a straight for good measure! I managed to then double up with AJ vs A7 in a BvB battle and I hung around for a while before pushing 77 UTG with an M of 7 into AdJd. Obviously he flops a fish hook and turns a flush just to really fucking rub it in! I finish 893 from about 2070. Cunt.

Cell was railing and couldn't believe some of the hands. AT beating AA by rivering a boat. 76 flopping trips then turning a straight and filling up on the river! My 66 hand above. In one hand I folded KQs to a raise and re-raise and the fucking flop comes KKQ! Stars was certainly on top form last night! I'm not saying it's rigged but I can see why people would think it is! I also played like a total wanker in a 4/180 and came 53rd. Like I mentioned in my opening paragraph I am running bad but I'm also making bad decisions. An example is the 66 hand. It was correct in that I was ahead when the money went in but I was a dog by the river. I was that pissed off with myself that I even sat at a couple of fixed limit table for about 20 hands but realised why I stopped playing it! I need to get a grip, get back to basics and get back on track and start a fresh challenge.

Our Oriental cousins love the number 8. It is considered lucky and right now I need some luck! So I am going to start a challenge for myself that shouldn't be overly difficult but at the same time satisfying! I'm going to start with $88 and try to turn that into $888 in 88 days! Now if that doesn't bring me some fucking luck I don't know what will! LMAO! All those snowmen have got to help me haven't they? I'm also probably going to do this on Party Poker and be a stalker to Spunk Sock and Amatay, the main reason being is they run full ring NL4 which means I'll have a healthy 22 buyins to start off with rather than risking going busto from the off and playing scared with what would be 8 buyins at NL10. I might start to take a shot at NL10 once I am up to $120 but if I drop a couple of buyins then I'll come back down to NL4 and rebuild. I'm also only going to play 1 table initially so that I can get back into the grove but I imagine I'll be playing at least 4 table by the end of next week. I've always ran like shit on Party so let's hope that changes!

In other news, it seems like God has let all the really annoying people out at once to follow me around on public transport. Sat on the bus last night there were two girls talking rather loudly about total fucking tripe. I was flicking through HOH2 when I heard them start to talk about titties and how this lass went for her jugs measuring and she thought she was a D but really she's an F and that the woman measuring her couldn't keep her eyes of her chebs. Obviously I had to check out this amazing rack so cunningly sat almost side saddle on the seat only to be greeted with something from Beauty and the Geek talking to fucking Shrek! God she was awful. Yeah she might have had huge tits but that's because you love cake my darling and the bull dyke measure your baps will be the only fucker who wants to see them so get over yourself!

As always though God's own city of Leeds cheered me up by delivering me a dwarf! But not just any dwarf, a black dwarf! I've never seen one before and was pretty amazed I'd seen one, they must be rare, like white dog shit! Anyway I watched his little legs go like bees wings as he tried to carry his body sized rucksack through the bustling crowds and it made me think. Do dwarves have normal sized cocks? How great would it be if you were a dwarf and had a normal sized knob! This got me thinking about dwarf porn and Bridget The Midget in particular and I decided I probably couldn't fuck her but I might let her suck me off! Actually nah, thinking about it now I probably could nail it if I am honest! I think I need to do some internet research later and report my findings! I've added a poll underneath my blogroll to see what my readers think.

My arse has been owned by a pizza! Yes a pizza, the shit the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles eat. I thought it would be a good idea to get a "Spicy Meat Ball" pizza for supper, I'd had them before and they were a bit pokey but nothing crazy. Well the cunts must have changed chefs and employed a sadistic bastard! He's replaced the tomato puree with lava, the spicy meat balls with fireballs and the normal green peppers for fucking Jalapenos! I had horrific wind on the way into work today but have relieved that by firing out what felt like 3.5kg of chopped liver out of my arse followed by two pisses, also out of my arse. I daren't fart and my mudhole feels like it is gaping like a heavily pummelled pornstar's would an hour later. Nice pizza but never again!

Well that's all for now folks. I hope you have a great weekend despite the fact it is pissing it down right now and I wish you the best of luck at the tables!

Just One Of Those Days

Do you ever have one of those days where whatever you touch turns to shit or where everyone and everything just annoys the fuck out of you for seemingly no reason whatsoever? Well yesterday was one of those days. I don't think stopping smoking helped at all to be honest because there were about 25 different people yesterday I could quite easily have covered in grease and set alight, even the actual bus I got on to come home from work pissed me off because the fucker vibrated like a turbo charged Rampant Rabbit on steroids! I swear my fillings nearly came out from all the shaking!

By the time I got home I was dying for a smoke but was a good boy and decided not to give in to temptation after putting myself through a day of hell, why make it worse tomorrow eh? I had planned to jump straight onto a couple of 4/180 games but forgot that I had agreed to drop the pub DJ's hard drive off for him in Wakefield so I had to drive there, in rush hour traffic, which tested my will power because I always smoked in the car, especially in traffic! Anyways, I got back home, had a pint of lager, a shite and logged onto Stars to register for some of the 4/180's and win myself some dough! The problem is with poker, is that in general you actually have to play well in order to win. I wish someone would have reminded me of that fact because I played like shite!

I registered for two games and noticed that the shark known as Kenn had logged onto MSN so I had a wee chat with him and it turned out he was in the same 2 games as me, could it be a Raise The River first and second finish? Nah! I think Kenn busted pretty early in one and I didn't fair too well busting in 118th after I called a min raise with KcQc and ended up getting it all in on the turn on a king high board and couldn't suck out against a slow played AK. I fired another up and never got above my starting stack at any stage and busted around 50th. Meanwhile I was doing pretty good in one of the games I fired up at the beginning of my session.

I'd been playing pretty tight but seemed to be picking up hands at the right time and I was sitting with an above average stack at the first break and feeling very comfortable. Not long after play resumed I made a horrible play with 99 and managed to get Stars to save me on the river. I raised 1st in on the CO and the BB called. Flop was something like 864 with 2 clubs. Turn was 5c I think and somehow the money went in and villain shows 64. River is an 8 and I get a decent stack for my donkey play! Amatay wasn't impressed on MSN. I then took the chip lead after some donk loved his JJ enough to 4 bet me AIPF and my Rockets held but then I went card dead and mistimed a couple of steals and at the 2nd break I was sat 6/23 but still in very good shape. Then this hand, sponsored by KJ Jelly, fucked me dry from behind! I'd been in a couple of pots since the restart and was delighted to see AA! I made my standard raise and a fellow big stack raised enough to put me all-in. Obviously everyone folded and I called with my rockets and he shows JJ and I'm an 80/20 for a big chip lead with only 21 players remaining so another final table beckons. Well it did until the cunt caught running cards and rivered a fucking straight. Flop 738. Turn T. River a fucking Neuf. Jesus Christ! I can't fault his play nor can I moan really because if I hadn't have sucked out early doors I wouldn't have been this deep but to go out to running cards is awful. I fired another game up when I went to bed but I was more tired than I thought and ended up turning my laptop off after the first break because I was falling asleep so I'm not sure where I finished in that one but there were only 70 or so left in that particular game when I went to sleep!

So my ROI has dropped to around 35% from 33 games which is shit but also a meaningless sample size. I'm determined to get this to at least 100% because I feel very comfortable playing them, I just need to log some volume. Full Tilt are still dragging their feet with regards to my withdrawal and have now taken to ignoring my emails too the twats. I'm pissed off about this because a mate transferred me $50 so I could play over last weekend and I promised him it back in "a couple of days" but the wankers still haven't transferred me anything to Neteller so I only have 7 buy-ins on Stars at the minute so hopefully I'll be able to go deep tonight and replenish my roll again and repay my mate! I should be on there about half six to seven should anybody wish to join a couple and give each other some railage.

I was meant to be going to see a flat tonight after work but they've phoned me to tell me that the guy who was going to show me around is poorly so I need to make another appointment. Problem is they don't do weekends and they close at five so how the fuck I'm meant to sort somewhere is beyond me! I'm a bit stressed about this because I've worked out I'm going to have about £550 left this month once my bills come out which is nowhere near enough to hire a van, pay a bond and a month's rent and bills so I'm a bit fucked really. Looks like I better get asking people to borrow their sofa for a couple of weeks and save some wonga up! Why do I always blow my money on shite and leave things until the last minute every single time? Cos you're a cunt Pud, sort it out!

Still no fags smoked although today feels worse than yesterday, I actually feel anxious which is fucking shit I can tell you. It should all calm down again by the end of the week, just in time for the weekend! Great! Thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

Stopping Smoking Blows Dead Bears!

So I decided to stop smoking again over the weekend and I had my last fag at about 2355 last night. I stopped about 5 years ago when Pud Jr's mum fell pregnant with Pud Jr and I didn't smoke again until he was about 2 years old. I then stopped again when I was with former Mrs P, even though she still smoked, but for some reason I started smoking again and I've been smoking every since. Why have I decided to stop? Well I want to be more healthy physically to aid me mentally plus most of my family die from heart disease or cancer so I'm bound to get cancer of the heart at some point so I might as well lower my chances of developing something nasty!

The last times I quit were dead easy but for some reason today I am really irritable and could kill some cunt I tell you! It says that 20 minutes after your last smoke your blood pressure returns to normal. The lying bastards! I can tell you 14 hours after your last fag your blood boils and its pressure is through the roof! 8 hours after your last fag your blood oxygen levels improve and your chances of having heart attack fall but the chances of you smashing someone in the mouth for just looking at you increase by about 3.5x. I can't wait for another 10 hours when all the Carbon Monoxide leaves my body and apparently my lungs start to clear out mucus and debris. It'll be even better the day after when my sense of smell and taste improve so not only will I be coughing up phlegm and shite from my lungs all day I'll be able to taste it better and smell it too. Can't fucking wait! I don't remember it being this hard before but I'm determined to stop especially as the wank weather will be here soon and with smokers now being social outcasts and forced outside to face the elements!

I had Pudding Jr over the weekend and was pissed off to find out that he started school and his fucking mother didn't tell me. I'd have loved to have been there for his first day of school but the psychotic whore kept me in the dark about it. Slag! I had a right moan at her the other week because she's lazy with him sometimes and even though he's 4 she was putting a nappy on him for bed and giving him milk from a feeder bottle. I told her this was bollocks and that he'll never be able to stop at schoolmates houses as they'd rip the piss out of him and she seems to have taken note as he slept in my bed with me without even asking for any milk and was dry in the morning. Mattress and bedsheets 1, Pudding Jr 0! We had a good time together and he wouldn't stop kissing me the soppy little get! Making the most of it though because now he's at school he'll want less and less of me.

Anyway, about 30 minutes before closing on Sunday a woman and 3 lasses walked in and ordered some beers and I knew one of them so greeted her by saying "What you drinking bitch?" and we had a natter. When they left one of the lasses has lost her phone so was looking for it and just came out and said "You've got gorgeous eyes. They are dead sexy!". Well they are pretty fucking nice if I may say so myself and women love them! Anyway I said nothing and just smiled then after she found her phone she gave me her number and said "I'll be seeing you again sexy eyes", gave me a peck on the cheek and walked out! LOL! Of course I stored the number as you never know when the presence of Pud's pork will be requested! Not heard fromthem since, probably never will!

Former Mrs P and I are getting on well again which is always good. There are still a lot of feelings flying around and I think there is still some chemistry there too which is always nice. We we chatting at silly O'Clock on Sunday morning and we were laughing out heads off at the shite we were coming out with. She's a crazy bitch and has got more and more sarcastic and quick witted but then again she has learned from the master, aka Me, although she argues it's from her dad she gets it from! Whenever we are getting on my poker playing improves, it's weird! If ever I make it to the WSOP then I'll have to take her with me as a good luck charm!

Speaking of poker, I have played fuck all, not a single hand, mainly due to Full Tilt being wank and taking forever with my withdrawal. Thankfully I have been given a $50 loan until this clears so I should be able to play tonight. Part of the terms of the loan, which I stipulated, were I played 4 games of 4/180's on Stars and I promised 15% of my action from these 4 games. So if by some major miracle I won all 4, my loan guy would receive $179.96 back for his $50! Would be nice! I'm going to play these games tonight and I can't wait to hit the table with my new attitude and without being fuelled on ale! I have to go drop an external hard drive off in Wakefield when I get back to the pub from work but I should be logging on about half seven or something like that if you wanna say hi or sign up for a couple of games. I'm looking forward to hitting the tables, well I say that now but will probably want to kill someone about half an hour into them!

Two big congrats. First to Annette_15 who has been killing online this year but has just won £1m and a bracelet for taking down the WSOPE in London aged just 18. It's great for poker if it attracts some new, fresh fillies into the game! Also, congrats to UkGatsby who went real deep in Event 5 of the WCOOP on Stars for a $10.7k score. Nice work mate!

That's all for now. Some proper poker content should appear tomorrow if I manage to play 4 games tonight! Take care all.

5 Days And Still Waiting

Fuck Full Tilt! I requested a withdrawal to Neteller on Wednesday the 12th and it still hasn't been approved yet! I sent them an email asking WTF is going on and their shitty generic response told me that they were busy because they were processing a higher volume of withdrawals at present. Yeah, people probably withdrawing for the Stars reload bonus so Full Tilt drag their feet. I hope they have a better withdrawal method when they're shagging otherwise there'll be tons of FT employees up the duff!

Give me my fucking cash you twats!

Cash Is Dead! Long Live MTT's!

I've decided to stop grinding the cash games because I just cannot motivate myself to play them for some reason despite already making $100 this month. Since I've come back from my mini holiday I've hardly played a hand of poker and when I have I've ended up only playing 25 minutes or so where before I'd log 2-3 hour sessions. I can't put my finger on a particular reason, maybe it's because they're not exciting enough for me! With that in mind I've decided to hit the $4.40 180 man games over on PokerStars.

This morning, whilst Pudding Jr was having some breakfast I went through all the MTT's that I have played so far this year. I've mentioned before that as a general rule I've only ever entered MTT's when pissed or sometimes tilting because I know I can only lose a set amount of money by playing bad. More recently though I've been researching MTT's and have discovered how profitable they can be, especially at the lower stakes. I counted every MTT that I had entered on Full Tilt and PokerStars that had 90 or more people in and I was shocked to see I have only played 53 games. Some guys play this over 2 days because of the variance involved in these things.

Out of these 53 games I hit the money 15.09% of the time but my ROI is -16.69% meaning I've made a loss of $43.92 this year from MTT's. My average finish is 130/348 and I lose on average $0.83 per game so basically I am losing but almost break even. However, if I only take the 180 man games into consideration I have played 29, finish ITM 20.69% of the time with an ROI of 54.61% and a profit of $69.68. My average finish in these is 55/180 which means I make around $2.40 per tournament entered. I mean these figures are nothing to write home about but profit is profit and these figures also include when I first started out with the 180's where I failed to cash 7 games in a row and also another spell of not cashing for 8 straight games which happened a couple of months ago!

So once I have finished my barshift tonight I am going to fire up a couple of these, maybe 4, and hope to improve on these figures and get much closer to a 100% ROI and start to make this bitch we call poker start to pay!

Wheels Of Fortune Continue To Turn!

I didn't log the amount of hands I planned to last night, in fact I didn't even log onto Ultimate Bet, instead I opted to carry on trying to rape Party Poker using the free $50 they gave me last week! Things are going really well in the world of Party and I managed to rathole another $25.64 back to Neteller last night after more success playing PL Omahahahaha. I'm really getting into this game now and am feeling what hands to play. All I need to work on is my bet sizing like when to bet pot etc but that will come with time. So far I have turned the free $50 into $105.93 and I still have the $50 to play with until about September 15th I think. Good times!

Those who have followed me from my old hacked blog will know that the life God's love to turn my doomswitch on and the mother fucker has done it again. As you know I jet of to Lanzarote tomorrow, for a long weekend, at 1535. No problem there, I can get a train from Dewsbury straight to Manchester Airport at about 1030 to get me there for lunchtime, plenty of time to check in and mince about the shops. I land back at Manchester at 0030 Monday morning and the first bastard train out of there is at 0302! WTF! There is no fucking way I am hanging around a semi-closed airport for 3 hours. It gets worse though! If I wait 3 hours for the train I won't get home until 0630 because the cunt takes me to York first where I change trains. Jesus! I've looked at National Express and their first coach is about 0500 and the cunts have a habit of crashing lately so my only other choices are staying in a Travel Lodge for the night or get a Joe Baxi back home. Either way I'm probably looking at the thick end of 50 sheets when I get back. Bad beat!

I'm wanting to get some more pictures on my blog so I've dug out my camera but now can't find the charger. FFS! The camera on my phone is pretty good so I might have to use that for a few snaps I suppose. Talking of photo's does anyone know the legality of taking pictures of people without their consent? I see some right fucking sites out and about and would like to share them with you but obviously don't want the boys in blue hunting me down for being a perv! It wouldn't just be people though as I have a decent eye for a good photo and I think they brighten the place up a little!

I also seem to have become some sort of semi-shrink! Ages ago I was off my face and couldn't sleep so joined Lycos chatroom (I know stop laughing) and got chatting to some 18 year old Polish bird called Ewa (pronounce Eva obv). We exchanged MSN's and talked bollocks in slightly broken English. Anyway, last night I was playing on Party and she IM'd me and asked how England was blah blah blah and she seemed really down in the dumps saying that she didn't think anyone liked her, especially at college and she couldn't talk to her parents or friends about it because they think she's ok and would just say that she's mourngy. I got chatting to her and told her about when I was her age and how I wanted to be in the popular crowd but was too shy etc and it seemed to cheer her up. I told her if she needed to chat she could talk to me and she replied "Thank you. You is so nice person. It helps talking to you, my friend from England :)" So Pud does some good in the world for a change, it's amazing how just 10 minutes of your time can actually make someone's day and it made me feel really good about myself. Pud the councillor, who'd have thought that?!

I'm working the bar tonight and have some last minute things to do for my holiday so don't know if I will get to play at all. I'm going to try squeeze in a couple of hours though as losing 4 days is going to damage me a little although I do have Monday from work so will probably have a poker day once I've finished unpacking and showing off my tan! LOL!

Take care guys and good luck at the tables!

Bankroll = $173.27
Needed = $4826.73

Pudding Gets Stacked!

Yesterday wasn't the best day for poker and if I'm honest I should probably have left it alone because I was both physically and mentally drained which doesn't exactly aid good, solid poker playing. It wasn't all bad as I still turned a profit, albeit a small one, but profit is profit at the end of the day and I'd take winning $0.01 over breaking even or losing any time of the week.

Things actually started brightly when I decided it would be a good idea to use the unwithdrawable (is that a word?) $25 I had left on Party to play in a $22 SnG and I came 2nd for a nice little $60 which meant I could withdraw $12.62 back to the USS Neteller and leave the original $50 in my poker account. The play was awful. I mean I wasn't even concentrating and I sailed through to the money by hardly playing a hand. If that is the regular standard for the SnG's on Party I think I might have to hit a few more once I have built my roll to around the $1k mark. I eventually busted when I pushed with 33 and KQo called me and villain spiked a King on the flop. Still, that's $80.29 I've managed to earn from this free $50 and I still have 11 days which to play around with it! Could be a little goldmine this free money!

After the SnG I fired up a couple of table of NL10 on Ultimate Bet and got off to a great start when very first hand I am dealt a lovely pair of bullets. With a raise and a call in front of me I bet the pot to look like a squeeze and the initial raiser went all in for the rest of his $5 stack. I of course call and he tables AhKh and I make a nice little profit early on! I then ended getting stacked by some poor play. I raise UTG with ATo after a quiet spell and get one caller who is running at around 35/20/3 and hasn't really stepped out of line but seems to like to call raises with a wide range. I flop top and bottom pair and bet pot and am called. Now I hoped he had something like JJ or KQ here. Turn is a blank really and I bet out almost pot again, villain thinks about it and pushes all-in. This screams "I have a set" but I find myself clicking the call button and of course he's get a set of tens I am felted. Fuck! So after 203 hands and a $9.45 loss I called it a day.

I've pencilled in a big session tonight and I'm hoping to log around 6-750 hands of NL10. I've nothing to do apart from go buy some new jeans for my holiday on Thursday so I should be able to get cracking by about 1900 and log a session until around 2200. I'm averaging around 230 hands per hour playing 2 tables, it'd be great if I could 4 table here because I'd be getting over 450 hands per hour which would be brilliant. I did consider withdrawing from UB and playing on Full Tilt but the rake there is horrendous at NL10. I suppose being able to play twice as many hands and getting 27% rakeback would counter this somewhat but we'll have to see, I might withdraw from UB when I go on holiday, that way I won't have any downtime whilst money is being transferred as I won't be able to play anyway!

I also played a little 7 card stud and also PLO on Party last night and was amazed at how bad the standard of play in both was, especially in Stud. I'm no expert in either game, far from it, but I know the basics and might give both games another shot tonight for a change of pace. Omaha is crazy as fuck and I really enjoyed playing it, even if I did only break even!

Thanks for reading, I'll see you at the tables!

Bankroll = $147.63
Needed = $4852.37

Off To A Good Start For Once!

Well I've started my quest to take $50 to $5k in 200 days and it's all so far, so good. With the my first day's offical play also being the day I have Pudding Jr I wasn't expecting to play at all until I'd finished my bar shift but he fell asleep around lunchtime so I jumped on for a quick 30 minute session.

Party had given me $50 which I couldn't withdraw unitl I had to clear 600 points with before 7th September. I was initially going to grind this but decided to just stick it all on a NL50 table instead. I played about 70 hands then Booooooooom! A donkey raised UTG and I 3-bet with AK on the button. Flop comes JJK and donkey bets pot I jam and he calls with QT and misses and I am sat with $120! Kerching! I try to withdraw my balance, less the $50 from Party, and it lets me so everyone's a winner! Bankroll boosted! I played a little on Party after my barshift last night and managed to spunk away $25 on a semi bluff against a rock. I think I might enter 2x $11 or 1x $22 SnG when I've finished work tonight, at the end of the day it's free money which I can't touch so it's a no lose situation!

I officially started my challenge this morning on Ultimate Bet and with my bankroll being boosted to around $120 I decided to take a shot at NL10 with the plan to drop to NL2 if I lost a couple of buyins. Thankfully I never needed to do that as I managedto get off to a good start for a change and ended up $20 plus change to the good from 419 hands! I never felt out of my depth, nor did I think I would do, but I found out I can't play more than 2 tables there because of the way the active screen jumps around like some crazed crack whore after a fix. There was one point where I needed to act on all 3 tables I had open and they were switching from one to the other so badly that I couldn't act! I ended up checking on 2 of them just to stop the bastards from flashing! Anyone know a way around this?

Biggest Pot Won = I think I played this ok. I'd been active and wanted to let villain do the betting for me. It seemed to work as I got to stack him!

Biggest Pot Lost = Again I'd been pretty active. My bet on the river was more of a blocking bet because if he bets here say $1-$1.50 I'd really have a tough time folding but him instantly jamming after this bet said I was beat. I showed my AT and was surprised to see a set as I'd put him on a bigger Ace or even A9.

In other news I was awarded a Gatsby award for blog of the month by none other than UkGatsby. Paul gives out these awards every month and I'm pretty chuffed he's chosen my blog for this particular award, especially as my old blog was hacked and I lost all my old posts. Hopefully I can reproduce some of the craziness of the old blog here and get a few more readers!

Still not 100% sure what is going on with the potential Mrs P. I spoke to her Friday and in the early hours of Saturday morning but still not really any wiser. I've decided it's going to be a case of if she wants to chat or whatever she can contact me, I've chased for long enough. I'm off on holiday for a few days from Thursday so perhaps it's come at a perfect time for everyone really?

Right, I need to get ready for work soI'll leave it there I think. Enjoy the rest of the weekend and thanks for checking in!

Bankroll = $143.76

Needed = $4856.24

A Cheerful Pudding

Although yesterday's post wasn't overly doom and gloom I wrote it at home in quite a sombre mood. I even told former Mrs P on Wednesday that I wasn't really bothered about the situation when really I was. I'm pretty good at pretending about how I feel about stuff when it comes to my emotions, it drives my mum mad and I bet a few others too. I think the fact that I described my feelings as being "numb" spoke volumes. Anyway, things have already started to look up after a long conversation with potential Mrs P this dinner time.

Every Friday, at work, we are allowed an hour for lunch instead of the usual 30 mins and because where we work is a bit out of the way the company puts on a coach for us and takes and collects us from God's own city of Leeds! I don't usually bother, instead I grab something from the canteen here, get a nice coffee from the coffee shop over the road and have a couple of smokes before doing blog stuff and surfing the t'internet. I popped in today though because I needed to sort my travel insurance out for next Thursday when I go to Lanzarote with my olds. Reason to be cheerful number one: £15 was all it cost! Earlier this morning I received a text from potential Mrs P asking how I was and stuff and I said I'd ring her on my lunch. We chatted as usual and she told me that all this didn't mean the end but that we just need to do it differently. She went on to say that she doesn't want to be with her boyfriend and she wants to be with me but wants to do things properly and not jump from one relationship straight into living with me in another, which is fair enough I suppose. Apparently it was viewing the flat last Friday that made her realise she was rushing into everything too quickly and it freaked her out so she stuck the brakes on.

Anyway, long story short it looks as is things might still be happening. I need to sort a place out for me to go to and she's going to sort her shit out and get her own place too and then once the dust has settled we can take it from there at our own pace without having to rush anything at all. It's not going to happen overnight but it's a start I guess and better than being left in limbo and not knowing what and why everything all of a sudden came to a halt. Like I said in the comments to the last post, time will tell. Also in a good mood because I had a pint of lager and a jacket spud with cheese and chilli for my lunch!

So my poker challenge begins in a little under 10 hours and I will then have 200 days in order to make $5k from NLHE cash games. It was going to be ending on 19th April 08 but I think 200 days sounds better for blogging purposes! I'm starting by playing at Ultimate Bet and sitting at the short-handed NL2 tables before moving to NL10 and NL25. Once NL25 is reached I will be considering changing sites, probably to Full Tilt, because I'm having trouble multi-tabling on UB at the minute. My two problems are the lack of resizable tables on UB so I have horrendous overlap and also the fact that their "force table to front" simply doesn't work properly so it gets annoying and causes misclicks and wrong bet sizes when another screen becomes active! I've emailed support but they're about as useful as cock flavoured lolly pop in all honesty and they're probably looking for a generic email to send me right now to fob me off! I can cope with misclicking and losing out on a $0.45 pot right now but would be a bit more pissed off at a $14 pot so a change may be needed unless a solution can be found. I've Pudding Jr staying tonight so I won't get to start until he hits the hay and by that time I'll probably need a beer and something to eat so it'll almost certainly be midnight by the so I'll hit the tables for a couple of hours before getting some shuteye.

Well that's all for now folks, good luck at the tables, have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

Pudding's $50 to $5k Challenge

For too long I've fucked about, jumping from cash games to SnG's to MTT's with no real focus, just the hope of a big score so I can play decent stakes for decent money and have the remote possibility that I can use poker to fund a better lifestyle or ideally play full time for a living. The problem is it doesn't work like that for most players. It's a known fact the vast majority of players are losing players and fall by the way side. In fact a lot of seemingly winning players are actually losing players long term but are riding a good spell of variance. It's time to prove to myself I can do this and time to get serious about my game and make poker start to pay.

I have great belief in my game. I'd probably get killed at NL200 and above, currently, but I know I can beat the micro stakes for a decent score on a regular basis. I have the knowledge, know the theory and have the balls to make plays and read games but I have a few leaks that I need to plug in order to succeed. One downfall is strange because it is down to patience. When I'm playing I can easily sit there for an eternity and wait for the right situation to arise which is a good thing but I am very impatient when it feels like a challenge isn't progressing as quickly or smoothly as I would like and I often start playing more tables etc rather than focussing on the end goal which is often months away. I guess I become kind of blinkered. Readers of my old blog know I like a drink, and poker and drink don't really mix too well. I hate to think how much money I've left at the table due to drinking the amber nectar so that is one leak I need to plug right away if I am to become profitable. There is a very fine line between being ok to play and having alcohol cloud your judgement and I cross that line with an alarming regularity. I don't think living in a pub helps but that situation should be changing when I get back from holiday on the 11th September. Those are my main two problems really. I could include over thinking hands but I can adapt that quickly to my table and adjust the way I think to suit the donks or the tougher players.

So I have set myself a challenge which will start on Saturday 1st September 2007 and will run until Saturday 19th April 2008, which incidentally is my 27th birthday. I am going to start with a bankroll of $50, or as close to that as I can, and grind my way through the 6 max micro NLHE cash games until I reach a bankroll of $5k. From start to finish is exactly 34 weeks which means I'd have to earn an average of $21 per day from day one. Obviously starting at NL2 this isn't going to happen but once I hit NL50 it should, in theory, be a piece of piss! Two reasons I've set a challenge of this length are firstly because I have a lot of shit going on at the minute and could be without the net to play poker for anything between 6-10 weeks in the not too distant future and also so that I can try to learn to stay focussed on something long term rather than get caught up with what's happened in a singular session.

I'm going to start off by playing a singular table of NL2 on Ultimate Bet. I have some outstanding bonus dollars on there that clear at very slow but steady rate and I also get 30% of my rakeback which should help a great deal. I want to learn to walk again before I start running and iron out any bad habits and become more positional and make notes on players rather than rely on 10-12 stats displayed above them by my HUD. Once I am comfortable fully with one table I will add more as it is obvious your hourly rate goes up if you're a winning player. I will be following a semi solid bankroll management plan albeit a pretty aggressive one which I'll explain later but it's going to allow me to take the occasional shot at the levels above without putting too much at risk.

I will be applying the following rules:

1.) Always be true to myself. If I am being outplayed accept it because it happens. Find another table.
2.) If I don't feel like playing then I won't. Simple as that. Too often I play for the sake of it which is -EV.
3.) If I feel like I'm going to tilt then I'll sit out and make myself a coffee or have a fag or something until the feeling passes.
4.) Accept bad beats happen to good players more often than bad.
5.) Don't be results orientated, just make plays that I believe will maximise expectation over time.
6.) If I go bust I stay bust.
7.) When I hit $5k, brag like fuck and treat myself to something nice!

I'm really looking forward to this because it's going to make or break me as a poker player. If I can't do this then I'm going to need to make some sort of other plans to finance some of the things I want to buy and places I want to see. If I can do this then I'll be as chuffed as a puff with two arseholes and the sky is the limit from there. It'd be a great birthday present on the 19th April 2008 if I can look at my online poker worth and see a nice shiny $5k looking back at me. I need something to distract me from the real world right now, I'll post about the goings on soon but Pud's real life world has fallen apart a little so I'm wrapping myself up in my online one until everything goes away!

Only time will tell if I can do this. Wish me luck and keep coming back for updates and rants from yours truly.

Like A Phoenix From The Flames

Guess who's back? Only little old me! I went to sign onto my old blog today and there was absolutely nothing there! Nothing, nada, zilch. It looks like I may have been targeted by some twat who thinks it's funny to go around and either change all the posts the owner has ever written to porn links or to just straight delete it. In the past couple of weeks I know that Iggy aka "The Blog Father", Cadmunkey, Kenn and Micro Limit Donkey all falling victim to this cunt. Get a life or put your obvious skills to some use you piece of shit!

For those of you who have followed me from my old blog you know all about me so I'll just say hello bitches. For those of you that are new and have somehow stumbled across here I hope you like what you find and continue to come back. My blogs are mainly about my poker playing, mainly No-Limit Hold'em but I also love to have life rants, speak my mind about various subjects (often without thinking) and from time to time I go off on one and go a little bit crazy and off the wall. I don't usually set out to directly insult people or piss them off but it happens from time to time as I express my opinions in my own unique, from the hip style! If any of my posts or comments offends you please feel free to let the other readers know, just don't expect me to give a shit because to be honest as it's my blog, written in my words and they are my feelings. I used to wear my heart on my sleeve on my old blog and document my every up and down and that will continue so hopefully you'll start to feel you know Yorkshire Pudding and feel part of this blog.

As this is technically a new blog I'm going to totally start from scratch, as if I've never played before. All wins and losses from now on are going to be documented here on these virtual pages and hopefully as my blog grows with time so will my skills and obviously bankroll and I'll have something to look back on in a couple of years and see the progress I have made. I'll be starting a cash game challenge in the next day or two, I'm just waiting for Neteller to confirm they've received my massive deposit of around the $35 mark! Micro-stakes madness, bring it on!

That's it for now boys and girls. Thanks for checking in and best of luck at the tables!