Wembley

We went to the new Wembley Stadium on saturday to watch the england under 21's play Italy under 21's. I was disappointed by it to be honest... Now not to be bigheaded, i go to Old Trafford every other week and even though they cram you in like sardines, it is a nice stadium with good concession stands, TV's all over the place etc etc. We walked into Wembley and, even though the concourse was big, there wasn't anything there really. I was expecting state of the art surroundings with escalators etc and there was none of that, or just not where i was. The concession stands where staffed by idiots (as in every stadium) We went down for a pint at half time (well 42 minutes into the 1st half), were 3rd in the queue and got served as the teams were coming back out, and missed 3 goals.... From the outside the stadium looks nice, pretty boring neutral coulours, and you do have a lot of space in your seat.. Could i see where 750 Million went?? No... They will soon get that all back though, especially charging £5.60 for a hot dog...

On to Poker!!

Well i've decided to stop playing today, am only $50 down but seem to having one of those days where you get outdrawn every hand. AK v AQ etc etc...

I am having quite a good month, am now $415 up in March. In a previous post i spoke about when it all became real money.. I have now started using the profits i win to buy stuff i like rather than have it sitting in my poker account!!

I pulled out £200 the other week to buy a TV stand for the 32" LCD i won on Virgin, me and my mum have decided to go to Moscow in October to watch the Russia v England Euro2008 qualifier (might change my mind after saturday) and have paid for the £150 return flight (bargain!) with Poker winnings. I am also going to use my free flight with Virgin Poker to go to Shanghai in August, i only need to pay the taxes which is about £125 which i will pay for from my winnings..

So poker is good for me at the moment, flights paid to Moscow and Shanghai by the fish on Pokerstars, and free trip to the WSOP in June with Virgin!!

Poker Profit....

I've been playing poker for a couple of years now. Even from the start i have been a bit of a cautious player. Not in the games themselves but more in the stakes i play.

I started playing STT which i still play, At first it was $3 games then $5 then $10 and now i play $20 games (I did have a pop at $50 games and got a pasting so moved back down!!). Since finding the sharkscope website it has amazed me the amount people LOSE playing poker? When i moved up limits i lost about a third of my bankroll and immediately dropped levels. It amazes me the people that play limits and lose and keep playing higher limits. Now i fully understand that for me to WIN i need these players playing and if everyone won then nobody would ever win if that makes sense...

Looking at the players i have played today at heads up $20 STT here are the stats:

Games played Total Profit

169 $349
92 -$263
37 -$45
5234 -$28,871 (i mean come on....)
94 - $209
275 - $5,320
755 - $2,013
42 $188
796 -$1,987

I always argue with people about poker saying it is different to other forms of gambling sue to the skill levels involved and that you can't really lose if you manage your bankroll accurately..

This does actually make me feel good about my Poker, i profit, not huge amounts but i know exactly how much and know to adjust if things go wrong.

Flopping a Straight Flush....

I was playing earlier and the following hand occured...

PokerStars Game #8899057663:
Tournament #45257507, $20+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Match Round I, Level I (10/20) - 2007/03/14 - 13:35:03
(ET)Table '45257507 1' 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: englishgc (1600 in chips)
Seat 2: United113 (1400 in chips)
United113: posts small blind 10
englishgc: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to United113 [8c Tc]
United113: calls 10englishgc: checks *** FLOP *** [9d Td 7d]
englishgc: checks
United113: bets 60englishgc: calls 60
*** TURN *** [9d Td 7d] [3s]englishgc: checks
United113: bets 100englishgc: calls 100
*** RIVER *** [9d Td 7d 3s] [2s]
englishgc: bets 180
United113: calls 180
*** SHOW DOWN ***englishgc: shows [8d Jd] (a straight flush, Seven to Jack)

Now apart from the bad call by me on the river (this guy had been putting loads of river bluffs all game though and i had top pair!!) I have never seen it before when someone had hit a straight flush on the flop..

He was holding Jack Eight of diamonds

Flop 9 10 7 diamonds...

Now i am NOT great at working out probabilities.. but he could only hit 9 10 7 diamonds or 9 10 queen of diamonds to make this... 48 cards in the deck and to hit the exact THREE cards you need????

Does anyone have a clue of the odds of this?? Has anyone seen this before???

Poker, it's a funny old game...

I've been thinking lately about Poker and how it's a funny game...

I was watching Ben Grundy on Sky Sports last night playing against Ram Vaswani, Antonio Esfandiari and some others at the William Hill poker open. Now i'm not going to say i know ben at all, but I read his blog ( http://milkybarkids.blogspot.com/ )and check for updates every day, and have posted comments on their and have had replies back. Also Matt Broughton http://thewasterblog.blogspot.com/ who is the editor of flush magazine and presenter on Poker Night Live, again i have had blog conversations with him both on blogger and on the Virgin Poker blog. Both are level headed and down to earth and both, especially Ben have great results at Poker. Ben finalled tables at the EPT final in Monte Carlo, i saw him on TV playing at the WSOP on the same table as Mike Matusow and he makes loads of money playing both holdem and omaha on the internet, i believe he is also sponsored by betfair or was. Which other sports with people at the same level as this, would bother to write a blog and respond to comments left by others???? Can you see Wayne Rooney writing er..well anything.. sorry bad example.... Can you see Steven gerrard writing a blog every few days about how he is doing at football? and respond back to comments people make? I doubt it..

There is also the money aspect. Recently in the Carlinbg Cup final, arseholes and chelski players kicked off at the end of the game in a pretty worthless cup competition (only worthless if united DON''T win it..!!) and then the reserves of the same two teams kicked off again the other night. Now thses players get paid well and are playing a game of football. In Poker, someone might bust you out of tournament say at the WSOP Main event final table heads up, $12 million 1st prize and say $6 Million second prize, if one guy gets a really bad beat and loses, he would get up and shake his opponents hand (apart from Mike Matusow and Phil Hellmuth that is) Now even though he has won a load in theory he lost a load as well.

I have a plan... Get Ashley Cole, Didier Drogba, Ricardo Carvalho, Arjen Robben, Michael Ballack, Emmanuele Addebayor, Robin van Persie, Gilberto Silva, Kolo Toure and Jens Lehman round a poker table and wait for the sparks to fly...