Saturday, December 20, 2008

Fun!

You know whats lots of fun?

Being 2nd in chips with 20 left in a tournie with a big field, and getting your money in pre with AA vs KK against the guy who's first in chips.

And losing.

You know whats even more fun than that?

Less than an hour later, after grinding your way through 450 people to get to the FT of a different tournie, getting it in pre with AA vs KK against the CL when 2nd in chips.

And busting in 9th.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Bad Party (Gaming)

The biggest shareholder in PartyGaming and therefore party Poker, has
agreed to pay US authorities $300m (£195m) and plead guilty to a
charge related to illegal online betting.

This person is also in the unfortunate position of being called Anurag
Dikshit, which I know I probably shouldn't find funny. He's an
extremely wealthy Indian businessman who owns a 27% stake in the
company. This will probably be a landmark case where online gambling
in the US is concerned, as it appears two other major Party
shareholders have not followed the same course of action. I also
suspect many of the Poker and other online gambling sites still
operating in the US will be very interest to hear the outcome of this
case.

It's all a much more serious than I had originally thought, with
Dikshit potentially facing up to 2 years in prison. It seems likely
that the negotiations, coupled with Anurag's willingness to cooperate
will result in a settlement with the US DoJ, but it's certainly one to
watch over the coming weeks.

On a more personal note, as a result of playing cash at FTP over
the past couple of weeks, I have also fired up a few tournies there
having never really played anything other than the Sunday $750k. Last
night I busted my first Full Tilt Pro, by sucking out on a short
stacked Lee Watkinson with KQ > AJ, who I didn't even realise was at
my table until I got the pop-up afterwards.

There seems to be so many of these guys in the mid stakes tournies
that I don't think it'll be long until I'm able to cover a whole room
with the commemorative T-Shirts.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Stars Blogger Tournie

I played in this the last 2 years, and will be doing so again this year. One of the guys at ITH made the FT last year, so I have a decent target...

Online Poker

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

The WBCOOP is an online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers.

Registration code: 416977

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Running good, but not good enough...

It's been a busy few weeks for me away from the felt, so I haven't had much chance to play poker of late. When I have been able to get away from my clients pre Christmas demands it's been a great chance for me to bubble final tables and generally run good right up until it really counts. I have posted a 10th, 12th and 15th all in tournies with over 500 players in the past two weeks.

Outside of that I've been keeping up a half-respectable volume at the cash tables, dropping down to $200 NL 6-Max so that I can play a few more tables. I have been playing well in these games and running at what I would imagine is about expectation. Nothing to shout about really, just good old fashioned grinding to make up for a lack of playing opportunities.

I have a decent amount of time over the next 3 or 4 weeks so I intend to get really stuck in and get some decent volume posted. There are a few decent tournies over the holiday period, so I might focus on getting back to my tournie A game and taking things a bit more seriously going into the new year.

There has been some interesting field sizes at a few of the larger live tournies, notably the Bellagio events, but I'll write up my thoughts on that when I have a bit more time.