Lack of blogging

Afternoon everyone, apologies to all my avid readers (all 2 of you! Hahaaaa) but i decided to take a break from blogging while i was running bad as i was getting bored of typing badbeat stories/“feel sorry for me – look how bad i’m running” blogs etc!  And if i was getting bored of typing them then almost certainly people were getting bored of reading them!!

So whats happened since my last blog?  Well seen as my previous blog was mid-December then friggin LOADS has happened!!!!  Christmas for a start!!   Well, first things first, my staking deal....

Well its still going, although it did not start well.... I lost 20 buy-ins & we agreed to carry on but I didn’t see him for a while to get the money.  When i eventually saw him, a great “ballin” story came from it!  I am upstairs in 235 casino & he walks up with another lad we know. He asks how much i want off him to continue the staking deal, i suggest another 10 buy-ins. His exact words at this point were “well i only have a grand on me”, then he starts lookin over my shoulder & the other lad says “whats that look on your face about?”  Anyway he just walks over to a roulette table, takes a grand in cash out of his pocket & sticks it on Red.  I can’t watch so i walk away, a minute later i look round and he is at the cash desk cashing in 2 grand!!  Utterly ridiculous!!!!!  He walks over to me & hands me £1,000 in fiftys that look like they have just been printed!!!!!!   My life-goal is to one day be as balla as he is!!!  I know that he will be reading this & having a little chuckle to himself !!  That story is a pretty tame one compared to some of his others, i might share one or two on a future blog!

So yeh, that was on 11^th February, and i have been steadily winning back some of the original outlay.  I feel like things are going much better, i feel confident again which is massively important imho. Hopefully this little run of form continues & i will have won the original losses back before too long, fingers crossed!

Banter has been good at the tables too, especially at weekends..... Usually find myself at a table with at least one of Gra, Kez, Fozzie or OD, all from Warrington, which makes things a bit more entertaining.   Alternatively when me & Todd are on the same table we have some small but highly entertaining prop bets, which just keep things ticking along & energy high at the table (well, for Todd especially.... he jumps up to celebrate sometimes like he has scored the winning goal in an FA Cup Final... hahahaaa, quality!!).

I’m playing virtually all my poker at Manchester 235 casino now. For me its just the best place to play, always at least 1-2 good cash tables running during the week and then  7 or 8 on Fridays & Saturdays .  The dealers are nearly all very good at controlling the tables too, don’t get any stupid shit happening & any players stepping out of line are left under no illusions that it won’t be tolerated again.  Just things like rabbit hunting etc  are not allowed so the game runs quicker & more smoothly .  Also a guy got suspended/banned for slowrolling someone a few weeks ago!!  Ok, some people might say that seems a bit harsh but wait til you hear the full story.  The guy FLOPS quads. His opponent rivers a full-house & pushes all-in for about £250 into a pot of about £120 ish.  The guy with the quads THINKS, then says something like “ohhhh what could you have to do that?”, then he asks the dealer to count how much the all-in is for, then he counts out his own chips, then he thinks for a bit longer before eventually saying “ok, i better call then” before whipping over his unbeatable hand & LAUGHING !!   One of the worst things i have heard about at a poker table ever, and the guy fully deserved banning for it.  When he said he only laughed cos he was stoned it really didn’t help his case!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been to the new G Casino at Didsbury a few times which opened a few weeks ago and, although its a nice place, the games are ridic slow cos the dealers are all new!!!  The second time i went i literally had to leave after an hour or so cos the pace of the shuffling & dealing was tilting me!!!

I cant write this blog without at least one bad beat story, so here it is.... but i’m not telling it in a “FFS” way, i actually think its pretty funny. It was the worst badbeat of my live poker career to date, percentage-wise, although nowhere near some of the biggest pots i have lost which is probably why I didn’t get angry!    So it is the FIRST hand as i sit down at the table, its a £1/2 game and i have pocket 7’s, there is a raise to £11 and one caller.  I have sat with £100 initially to get a feel for the table before i maybe reload with more funds. So I decide to just flat call too, before we see a flop of K73 rainbow.  Pretty much perfect, checks to original raiser who bets £28, other guy folds & i just decide to shove, he calls & shows KQ.  Pokerstove tells me that i am a 98.4% favourite.  Just to confirm that is NINETY-EIGHT POINT FOUR PERCENT !!!  The astute ones amongst you will have already realised that the turn comes a King & the river another queen to give him a bigger full-house than my own!  Absolute shitballs for tea !!!

Ohhhhh and i nearly forgot to tell you about a hilarious story that happened to me & Gra as we arrived at the casino just before Xmas.  So we parked up in the multi-storey and walked over to the lift, as the doors open we both notice a pair of shoes just sat there on the floor of the lift, with no feet/legs in them, just a pair of mens shoes!!  Me & Gra look at each other, and then proceed to get into the lift! As we both walk in we notice a guy stood up against the mirrored wall, apparently fast asleep stood up with no shoes on (surprisingly)!!  As we pressed the button to go down to the casino, his head moves, he mumbles something then his head falls so his chin is on his chest & he is kinda drooling!!  Well, the whole situation was just too much for me, i’m in dire need of laughing hysterically at this point, as i often am when my mind is telling me to be quiet.  Pretty sure my shoulders were shaking from trying to control my laughter.  I kinda know Gra is in exactly the same situation as me so i’m deliberately looking away from him cos if i see his face trying to control laughter too then i’m gonna just break down in fits of laughter, i just know it !!!  Just as the lift reaches the ground floor, Gra lets out like a muffled laugh, kinda like the noise you would make if you had been holding your breath for as long as possible.  That was it, the lift doors opened & me and Gra burst outta the lift crying laughing, straight into a couple waiting to go up in the lift !!  They looked into the lift, seen the guy and turned around to wait for the next lift!!   It just compounded everything, we had to wait about 5 minutes to compose ourselves before we went into the casino. Truly one of the funniest things i have ever seen cos it was just SO FRIGGIN bizarre!!!!

On that note i’m gonna end my blog cos i’m laughing too much again.   GG & GL

 Andy

Things get put into perspective

Ok, change of tone for this blog..... Its all about positivity for me from here.  Running bad is merely a challenge that i WILL overcome, badbeats are a good thing as it means my opponents are poorer at poker than me!! Etc etc, you get the idea!

And the reason for this, wellllll life is just too short to spend worrying & moaning. One of my mum & dad’s best friends was diagnosed with cancer approximately a month ago, and it has already left her deaf & blind and in a lot of pain. Yesterday, her & her husband decided that she should stop the treatment she was receiving and now basically it is a matter of time before she passes away.  She is one of the nicest people I have met & I can’t begin to imagine how scared she must be at the moment.  Its just horrendous, and i absolutely HATE seeing my mum & dad upset..... it doesn’t happen very often but that helpless feeling is one of the worst feelings in the world.   I don’t want my entire blog to be depressing so i’m going to move on to the positivity side of it again......

All this has made me set myself some goals & decide what i want to do. Some of the things i have wanted to do for a few years, few months or few weeks need to have some wheels put in motion on them

1)      I want to visit Las Vegas to destroy the low stakes poker tables. Originally i said i wanted to do 90 days out there (longest tourist visa you can get) but I would be happy to do 2-3 weeks, preferably before Feb-March next year.

2)      I REALLY want to visit Australia, for about a month.... I would really like this to be whilst also playing poker there to cover the costs of the trip

3)      I want to start dabbling in the stock market, I have been plotting 2 particular companies share prices approx 3-6 times per day, and the threshold of one company is floating between 9.5p and 11p within a couple of days of each other.  If i were to invest 2-3k at the bottom of this threshold, sell at the top, then buy again when they drop down etc etc then i reckon I could make approx £1-2k per month to start with

There is, ofc, a slight problem with these plans.... I need money to do them all.  So if anyone knows anyone with some spare cash that would want to invest then let me know.  Anyone who invests will be entitled to a % of the profits from poker/shares & we can discuss this side of it.

I may not need any investment, I am due to go on a heater of IMMENSE proportions at any time now, I have 2-3 months of chronic runbad that needs evening out. It must be due from today I expect, I cannot imagine me losing a single hand of poker for approximately the next 3 weeks.     Regardless of me having my own money or not, investment in the above ideas would still be welcomed, if anyone is interested.  It just alleviates the pressure on my own scarce (but soon to be bulging again) bankroll.

I have been reading 2 other poker/life blogs recently, both of which are good but in highly different ways, first is Dave Nicholson’s (@lildavefish on Twitter) http://lildaveslife.blogspot.com/ is his blog link..... Good poker read & he sounds a bit of a balla!!  One thing he does say is that to play poker for a living that you have to absolutely love poker, through the good times & the horrific times. This is soooooo true its ridiculous.  I know i have family & friends who either don’t like what i do or don’t think i can do it for a long time/forever, but i have never been more determined in my whole life, i love this “job” and i’m not going to let it just disappear in front of my eyes

The second blog is of Maylis Boardman (@MaylisBoardman on Twitter), http://maylisboardman.wordpress.com/ is her blog link.   Both of them have inspired me in the last few days.  I hope they don’t mind me naming them, I have never met either of them, and i suppose any publicity is good publicity!

One of the things that has come from my “running bad” challenge has been my absolute overwhelming desire to improve my game to restrict my losses as much as possible.  I have mentioned to a few people that I am looking for criticism (in a constructive way preferably) of my poker game from them.  My contact details are, 1) Telephone number 07794 223423 to text me or call me, 2) BBM is 231EA3B3, 3) Email address is andyfield_07@hotmail.co.uk  If there is anything you can tell me about how you think i can improve my game then let me know.   Ed has criticised the way i played one hand in particular, and i would like similar feedback.

I’m also going to try to instigate BRS to take me on as an online staked player,  they agreed to do it in principle a year or so ago before loads of stuff came up & I had to back out.

 I think that pretty much covers most of what i wanted to say, and if not then it can wait!!  I have been awake for 24 hours now & am starting to fall asleep typing so bye for now & GG

Andy

My new staking deal

Ok, a bit of moaning first then onto the reason for this blog, ie the title of this post!!

Soooooo, overall, the last 2 months have been hard, REALLLLLLY hard.   Every time I have thought I was coming out of the runbad, it comes back & bites me on the arse.  I’m playing well, but I’m just sooooo card dead it is ridiculous.  I made a note of all 113 hands i was dealt in a session on Monday. Only 16 of the hands were what i would describe as ‘playable’.  Thats 14% of hands, and some of them I had to fold preflop as there were raises/3bets etc before action got to me. if i was lucky enough to win half of those 16 hands (which I didnt) I would have only won 7% of all the hands i was dealt that night!!  Jeeeeesus!!  When you are so card dead & only playing so few hands its hard to get value out of those hands cos people know you must have a pretty big hand. 

When i’m involved in hands I just cannot seem to win a flip, my pairs are losing to overcards, my overcards aren’t hitting against pairs, my draws just aren’t getting there.  The last 2 nights I have probably played a total of 10 hands combined, missed with 2 overs & a flush draw on 2diamond low board when it went all in on flop, missed with open-ender vs an UNDERPAIR (so my hole cards are good too if i pair up), and had my aces busted by pocket 6’s amongst other tilting hands!!  Last night i flopped bottom set, turned a fullhouse but got rivered by quads. FMELE!!!!!!   Last weekend i somehow managed to brick off with TWO open ended STRAIGHT FLUSH draws. GG!!  Its just been mega frustrating.  Somehow I have still managed to have profitable months whilst this has been happening.  Enough moaning anyway, as this leads me into the purpose of this post......

I have snapped up the offer of some staking for live poker, basically I have agreed with this person that they bankroll me for December & we go 50/50 on profits at the end of the month. At this point we also then re-evaluate if we both want to continue with the deal.  For the sake of my blog I am going to refer to my staker as “Fortuna” (Greek goddess of fortune), as I’m not sure they would want anyone knowing their identity.   The deal is good for me in the following ways:-

1)      I don’t have to risk my own money for a month, which gives my bank balance a month off from getting twitchy (ideal in Xmas month)

2)      It will allow me to play a slightly more open/aggressive game

3)      It gives me a confidence boost that someone is willing to invest in my poker ‘career’.

4)      It will stop me having a “flutter” on roulette on my way out of the casino!!! (Roulette is the devils game, and it annoys me that I have the occasional dabble on it with my own money, but if I’m playing with someone else’s money then I know I won’t even touch it !!)

It is also a good deal for Fortuna, I’m clearly a winning player, proved in nearly a year’s worth of live cash play (and even when I’m running as bad as Stephen Hawking with a flat tyre), so they should make some money out of it.  It isn’t something that either party can take on lightly, there has to be a huge degree of trust from both sides & in this case it helps massively that Fortuna is a poker player too so completely understands the swings that poker can have!  I think it is fair to say we both have respect for each other’s games, despite our poker styles being a bit like chalk & cheese. I think if someone could find a middle ground of both of our games then that person would be a fantastic player!!!!!

In other news, I’m flying out to Basel on Wednesday for the United match out there. It is a pretty huge game for us now with the way the group has progressed so should be a good trip!!  Me & Boldy (lad I’m going the match with) will be having a pint & a full English at about 6am in Manchester airport & the plan is to be in a pub in Basel for about midday local time!  Can’t wait !!!  Although apparently beer in Switzerland is painfully expensive!

            I really need to write a blog on the plague of slowrolling thats sweeping live poker at the moment, so will try to have that on here by the end of the weekend.

Finally, I have a good feeling about poker this weekend.... despite the runbad I just think its gonna be a huge weekend for me.... gonna win at least 80% of my flips & all my draws are going to just “get there” !!   Time to cash in some flip tokens.... Bink!   Good luck to me, and good luck to Fortuna too!!

Change of fortune?

Ok, the horrendous run seems to have come to an end.... Welllllll, i had a few more weeks of just card-deadness, BUT if anything I think it actually improved my game during this time.  When you are constantly looking down at 6 high then you have to make some moves just to try to break even or make a small profit. So that’s what I had to do, i managed some small profitable sessions.  Now in the last week or so I have actually had some decent rungood, hitting a few hands & having them hold up etc, and it feels REALLLLLLLLY good.  When you are going through them bad times, it really feels like you are never gonna come out the other end & its hard.  Graeme is going through it now & its not nice to watch a mate go through it either.  Fortunately he sees the funny side of it slightly easier than me so he copes with it quite well.   In short, poker can be a massive head-fuck!! Hahaaaa! But we love it, wonder what that says about us?!

Anyway, onto better times and some of my rungood.  It has thrown up a few interesting hands that I am going to run through now.....

Playing in a £1/2 game, I look down at Pocket 6’s in the small blind and there has been 4 limpers in front of me, perfect scenario to also call & hope to flop a set.  Flop comes J62 (2 clubs), almost perfect although the clubs are slightly worrying in a multi-way pot. I decide not to slow play & i just lead out for £7 to get some money in the pot. The next guy throws in a pony (£25 chip) trying to raise, BUT cos he hasn’t announced “raise” the dealer will only take it as a call.  Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh!  If the raise is allowed to stand here then its highly likely that all the money goes in right there & then, and if it doesn’t then its still building a bigger pot which is what I want. We are both sat on around £250 each so the pot has potential to be huge.  There is one other caller on the flop, before the turn brings an offsuit King which is a good card for me as there is a fair chance it might have improved my opponents hands. As he has tried to raise on the flop & everyone was aware of that, i decide to check to him & he bets £40 and the 3^rd player folds.  Now, my dilemma here is whether to raise or just call.  I decide that he isn’t on any kind of draw, as he has been pretty tight all night, so i think he would be playing small ball poker with a draw & just checking back to hit it.  I think he has possibly AJ or even KJ (which would be ideal).  This is where i make my mistake though i think, i should just raise to get the money in.... but i decide to flat call & fire any non-club on the river so it looks like i am bluffing like i have missed my club draw (i have been playing pretty tight so i think raising looks super strong).  So after deliberating I just flat call.  The river brings another 6 though, giving me quads which shouldn’t change anything really although it does just mean i don’t have to worry about an overset.  So, as planned, i fire £60 out hoping to at least get called but after some deliberation he folds.  He didn’t tell his mate opposite him what he had & i am clueless as to what he could have had, he wanted to raise the flop, he fired the turn & folds the river.... Very strange line to take, only thing i can think is that he actually was on the flush draw himself.  It was a strange hand & i think if i raise the turn that I get ALL his money. But oh well, he might have folded on the turn if i raised anyway. Just seeing quads was a nice feeling and i won a half decent pot!!!  (you can tell i’m coming out of a horrendous run).

That same night I flopped broadway, with my TQ, but the turn & river double paired the king & ace, siiiiiiigh!   Also, played a slightly strange hand against a guy who was running like sweet baby Jesus on jet-propelled rollerskates with a huge galeforce wind behind him !!!  I raise with JT, and get called twice. Flop comes T68, i bet out £10 (just over half-pot) and get called by Jesus. Turn is a 3, i bet £16 and he makes it £25 more.  I call, and river brings  another 6, i check with the intention of calling any bet & he fires another £35 which i call.  He proudly whips over his A6, MBFN (Must Be Fuckin Nice!!)

            Onto other things, one of my mates Danny Fogg qualified for an EPT event which was this week & he got through to day 2 before being knocked out, his final hand being AQhh vs 45hh and his opponent spikes a 5, sigh!  But having qualified for just 2euros into a 4400euro event it was a great achievement & will have been a very good experience.

Also, i am growing a rather ridiculous moustache this month for Movember so anybody who would like to sponsor me please get in touch

** Unanswerable Questions, 3) When the battery dies in your remote control, why do you think pressing harder on the buttons will make it work ?!

Horrendous run

I would love to be able to tell you all that I'm now back on a fantastic winning streak, but i would be an enormous liar!!   The last 3 weeks have been the worst of my short, but generally impressive, poker career.   And its not even down to me playing badly, in a way it would be brilliant if it was because of my bad play because then I would have something to work on & improve!  But it has literally been a combination of coolers, horrendous luck & a significant amount of horrific card-dead brutality !!  I will give you a quick rundown of some of the hands:-

* There is a raise to £8 and 3 calls in front of me, i look down at pocket Jacks, so i 3bet to £40.  This is a pretty substantial raise & I expect to take down the pot there & then OR be 4bet back in which case i might pass my hand if it is from the original raiser, but i will just get my money in against the 3 "callers" as the best i believe any of them can have is AK here as they haven't 3bet themselves (which they would with QQ, KK or AA).   Anyway the flop comes 842 (2 diamonds).  I get the rest of my money in & a guy calls me with J9 of diamonds and obviously another diamond comes for him & i lose

* Guy raises to £8 and I 3bet with pocket 10's to £23, he flat calls.  Flop comes JJ3, pretty good flop for me. I fire a C-bet, he goes all-in for about double my C-bet & i call.  He just FINDS the AJ  and hits quads on the river for good measure!!!

* I call a raise with 55 in a 4way pot and see a flop of K95, nice. Except another guy had flopped a set of 9's!!  Flopped set-over-set is a surefire way to lose money!!!

* I have AQ and raise to £7, flop comes AA7 in a 3way pot.  There is a bet and a call, i raise and get put all-in, I call and he has pocket 7's.  Soooo sick!

* I raise with AJ, one caller.... Flop comes Jack high, I C-bet, he raises all-in & i have to call for the extra.... he has KK.

* I raise with AK to £8, get one caller.  Flop comes K26. Money goes in, he has AA.  ffsssss!


On top of all the above, when i have picked good spots to bluff & make moves I have been getting called reallllllly light.  Basically anything that could go wrong HAS gone wrong & it has been a truly painful few weeks

The 2 hands below pretty much sum up this run!!!!!

* I'm in the BigBlind with 3,5 and the pot is unraised, so i obviously check and see an A24 flop, i have the nuts (but there are 2 spades there too).  Somehow there is a bet & raise in front of me, i reraise & it ends up in a 4way all-in!!  A flush comes on the turn & i somehow manage to lose money after flopping the nuts. I actually won some money on a side pot so it wasn't as bad as it could have been but still, flopping the nuts you would expect to MAKE money on the hand!!!

* I have pocket Aces and after 3 limpers, i raise to £8..... one caller.  I have a little look to see how much more money he has, and i find out its £7 (thats SEVEN friggin pounds!!!).  I flop a set so i check & he checks, i turn QUADS, i check & he checks.  I bet the river & he folds!!!  ohhhhh for the love of god!!!    I make £8 with quad aces!


I wrote all the above on Monday but didn't post it, since then I have had 2 half decent winning nights so i am hoping i have come to the end of this horrific period & can start enjoying my poker & winning some money again!

** Unanswerable questions, 2) Why can't they make the whole plane out of the same substance that little indestructible black box is made from? **

Worst night yet

Worst night yet

Well, i acknowledge that most of my blogs focus on the positive side of poker so i thought i should balance it out with the other side of things, the type of night when you would happily never play poker ever again, when everything conspires to go against you, and most importantly when you lose a lot of money.  Friday was one of those nights.

           I had sat down with about £80 on a decent table, some good action but not full of maniacs. I had got myself up to about £220 by playing some good solid poker & picking up a couple of hands, then the following happened.....  I pick up pocket Jacks under the gun. I start to pick up some chips to raise but then i notice that this really active player next to me is already getting hold of chips to call me, so i pick up an extra few £1 chips & make it £11. Now this obviously seems like a big UTG raise, but in these £1/£1 games if one of the first people to act after you have raised, call the raise then you are likely to get several callers, and with Pocket Jacks i would really rather just get it heads up.  He still calls me regardless & so does 1 other person. Not ideal.  Anyway, the flop comes down K,10,4 (all hearts) and i have the Jack of hearts.  I have to continuation bet so i make it £28, the active player makes it £78.  Now, i know he has a lot of moves in his game & i know he thinks i am quite a tight-solid player so i could just be C-betting & giving up to any resistance from him.  I also know he could easily be doing this with just the Ace of hearts or an open-ended straight draw (OESD).  I give it some thought & decide that about 30% of the time he is making the raise based on the fact i will just give up on the hand & fold, about the same amount of time he is doing it just with the ace of hearts/OESD. And the final 40% he is doing it with a hand that genuinely has me beaten (King, or set of 10’s/4’s).   So, if only 40% of the time he has me beaten, & of that percentage my Jack of hearts would be good a decent amount of the time if another heart comes, then i think shoving all-in here is +EV.  I decide to just get it all-in & hope he folds or is on a draw. I get the rest of my money in & he calls pretty quickly. Siiiigh, i must be beat. The rest of the board bricks out (7 of clubs, 9of spades i think) and he turns over K10 for a flopped two pair with 10 of hearts.  I wasn’t disappointed with my evaluation of the hand as i was correct in the fact that if another heart had come then my Jack of hearts would have been good.  Against a lot of other opponents I might have just folded to a raise on the flop but due to the amount of hands he plays & how aggressively he plays then i am happy with how i played this hand.

            So, i reload for £120, and more than double it up with some good play & not too many great hands.  I’m sat with £280 then this horrible hand happens. No need for big description... i get pocket kings, another guy has pocket aces, all the money goes in & i lose.  Now this kind of hand happens in poker (its one of those “coolers” i talked about in a previous blog), but if you are going to be on the receiving end then you would just rather you only had like £100 or less in front of you at the time. Or at least your opponent only has about that. Unfortunately the other guy had about the same as me so i lost the full £280 in front of me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Ouch.

          Again, i reload but only for £100 in case any tilt descends on me. I play the next 3 hands so i look like i am on tilt to the table but i’m just playing the strength of my hands.  4^th hand i pick up KingJack & raise, get one caller.  Flop comes AKJ, ideal as i can keep betting & looking like i’m tilting but i have actually flopped a monster. I bet just under the pot (nearly £20) and he makes a comment about me “steaming” and calls. Turn brings the 2 of diamonds, which puts a flush draw out there. There is £55+ in the pot & i have about £60-70 left, so i just go all-in.... it looks bluffy & i want him to call.  He obliges & shows A10.  River is, yes you guessed it, 10, to give him bigger 2 pair.  Ohhhh for fucks fuckin sake!!!!

            I reload for my final £120, and within 5-10 minutes there is a raise to £6 infront of me & a call, i make it £26 with pocket Queens and then get raised all-in.  I’m never folding here so i make the call.  Flop comes KK4 and he whips over his AK for a flopped set, no queen comes to dig me out of the hole & that was that.

            In the space of what cannot of been any more than an hour & a half i had lost £420 of my own money.  But as i had been nearly £150 in profit before it all went wrong, that is a swing of almost £600 in 90 minutes!  That is HUGE in a £1/£1 game (600 big blinds!!!).  People might ask why i didn’t just go home when i was in profit, well it just doesn’t work like that. I was playing well & stood to make a lot of money on that table the way it was playing.  You just cannot account for such a horrific run of bad luck/lack of cards going your way when you are in a coin flip situation (my QQ vs AK means i’m a 56% favourite).

            I have had a few days off since then, partly due to my birthday celebrations, but mainly because i felt like i needed a break from poker. Nearly headed off to casino about 2 hours ago (Monday night) but decided to have just one more night off from it.

Unanswerable Questions (i am going to finish each of my blogs off with one of these totally unrelated-to-poker bizarre life quandries, i don’t know why!!)   **Why does my home answerphone say “Thanks for calling” AFTER the person has hung up??!!**

One of the biggest calls of my short "career", or was it an easy one ?!!!

First & foremost, apologies for the delay since my last post. All my other posts have been made after something happened in one of my sessions that had inspired me to write about it. Although i have been playing a lot & still doing well, nothing major has happened that has spurred me to come back on here & inform you all about! However, i will try to post at least once a week from now on, even if its just some interesting hands that have happened etc etc

Sooooo, onto this post.... and the title says it all really. I played a pot the other night that i felt was one of the best (and most difficult) calls i have made since i started playing full time. Hand was as follows :-

Ok, so I'm in the BigBlind for £1, there's a straddle next to me for £2. The game i was playing was very "limpy"/passive preflop, with potential for BIG pots still postflop. I have Ks9s. There are 5 callers for the £2, I see no point in raising as I will be OOP (out of position) vs everyone except the SmallBlind so I call the £1. Flop comes TJQrainbow, I have flopped the 2nd nuts, which essentially becomes the nuts as I don't see anyone limping with AK (although I can't completely rule it out I'm like 95% sure). SB checks, I check, straddler checks. There's a bet of £15 and a caller, so I flat call as its the least dangerous board ever for my hand. Turn brings the 7 of clubs which does mean a 2nd club on board, I check, the original better makes it £25, other guy folds, I think & then raise it £65 more. At this point i'm thinking he probably has 2 pair here so I'm raising for value so that I can comfortably ship the river and the bet will just look like a standard river all-in. He thinks & calls. Before the river comes I am thinking "just put the 3 of hearts out there, or another brick", but ohhhh noooo, the river card is a friggin Jack which does not bring the flush, although if he's playing 2 pair then he could have just boated up quite easily. I check & he almost instantly puts in more than enough to cover the £115 I have left.

I think against virtually anybody else at the table I fold cos they don't have bluffs in their range & would just check back with anything but a Full House. But this guy is capable of bluffing after i have shown weakness on river & I'm getting great odds to make the call. I still go "in the tank" for a good while, i re-think the hand, what else could he be taking this line with??  If he had 2 pair on the turn then would he not just put me all-in there & then, not just call my raise because its a scary looking board for him. KJ is definitely the other most likely hand, he would have a pair & the straight draw, it could also possibly be KJ of clubs which would give him the up&down straight draw AND the flush draw (although surely he would get this all-in on the turn too). So KJ off suit then... seems more likely than 2 pair.  I decide that he probably has KJ approx 60-70% of the time, and a full house the rest of the time. Its costing me £115 to win about £340 so i'm getting 3to1 odds to make the call, so basically i have to make the call.  I push my chips over the line and say to him "if you haven't got a full house then i win with the straight", he nods his head to insinuate that i win and then he mucks his hand

Following the hand, everybody at the table discussed it for about the next half an hour.... i dont like to give too much away about how i think & play hands to my opponents so i try to keep quiet & just let them talk. But in my own mind i'm having a little conversation with myself too.  I know upto about 4 or 5 months ago there is no way i would have made that call on the river. I would have just been pissed off, assuming he's just hit his full house & folded pretty quickly.  But now, my level of thinking through hands has improved a lot & so has my thinking around pot odds etc etc.   Well, either that or i somehow managed to convince myself that i was ahead & made a hero call that worked out for me on this occasion..... what do you think ?!!  How many times would you have made the call, percentage-wise??   I am interested to hear your views....