Thursday 5 November 2015

Never thought I'd say this - Pokerstars, what a fucking joke

welcome back

So, Pokerstars (Amaya Inc) have announced far reaching changes to their VIP (rakeback) programme.

What a complete and utter fuck up. The new owners (Amaya Inc) are quite simply greedy motherfuckers and have royally stitched up their big money players. Wankers.

So what are the real money ramifications -

supernova elite currently 68% rakeback = $123,000 (really)

next year, elite drop to 45% rakeback = a loss of $42,000 (really)

Let's hope the supernova/elite guys see sense and fuck off elsewhere to play.

I'm more a cash player and it made my eyes water to see how royally fucked the higher stakes cash players get, well, royally fucked ....

• No VPPs for pot-limit and no-limit games with blinds of $5-$10+, 8-game $10-$20+, and other limit games with blinds of $10-$15+ (limit hold’em of stakes $15-$30 and higher).

Unfucking believable -  So high-stakes cash game players go from earning 30-68% rakeback to…zero ?

Zero percent ?

A slight reduction could be expected, or perhaps a slight rake increase.  This is neither.  What this is — is a fucking joke.

Cannot wait to see the fallout from this .. and the resultant fall in Amaya Inc's stock market value.

What a complete fuck up.

pleasant dreams

Saturday 19 September 2015

The Dreaded Pocket Kings (no, really)

welcome back

I was doing so well on partypoker.

Dropped 3 buy-ins today. Talk about pride before a fall.

Dealt pocket kings, I decided not to muck about and shoved .. straight into aces. de facto standard, sigh.
Reloaded. Dealt pocket kings again, I decided to run through the streets with them. Villain hit his straight somewhere along the line, sigh.
Reloaded and ground it up to three and half buy-ins. then pocket kings appeared, again. Being a nit, I elected to run through the streets, again. Despite decent raises pre-flop, two villains decided to come along. I had both of them covered. One of them hit two pairs, the other spiked a flush. Leaving me with three quarters of a buy-in, sigh.
No reload.
A couple of orbits later, I shoved with AQ .. into AK, sigh.

3 buy-ins.

Genius.

pleasant dreams

Wednesday 16 September 2015

Orient Express

welcome back

been z00m along on 'stars, that's Omaha z00m, for the record. Last session was 2600 hands, give or take, and I cannot win a flip if your life depended on it ! Never had decent enough volume previously to really notice the variance. I do question myself, you know, how long can this shit last ??!!
I've had a look and pretty much getting the money in ahead, the villains really are 50-50 at best. Still does not stop me cursing the hell out of them though !

So, 4-card-bingo, deffo down for the last few sessions. I find this extremely frustrating, make that quadrupled frustrating, as I'm actually ahead on the z00m 2-card-bingo (NLHE 6-max & full ring), grrrr.

On another front, partypoker front, I'm fastforward into winning position, lol. Again, very frustrating. Also have T$ on party .. no idea why these have been added to my account but hey-ho.
Used ten dollars worth in a small field mtt finishing 13th, top 9 paid. One misclick and one bad play on my part stopped me cashing, ho-hum.
One thing I will say about fast forward is the speed. Sure its 6-max but it does rattle along at a fair old rate of knots, so much so that I can only single table (woose) at the moment.

All in all, the variance train is really annoying me, how long can a cash game downswing last ????

Now I may not be Galfond, Williamson III or a Greenstein, but I am better than the average fish, honest !!!!

Time to fastforward into the future or should I z00m off over the horizon ....

"grins"

pleasant dreams

Wednesday 9 September 2015

beta

welcome back

I see that us UK players are the guinea pigs for pokerstars (aka Amaya Gaming Inc) proposed method of accumulating fpp's which of course translate to your VIP level.
Noticed the email from 'stars too late to sign up for the beta test, so like the rest of you, I'll just have to wait until October when they propose to roll it out for UK players only.
Rest of the world have to wait for 2016 .. I wonder what we did to deserve this ?!

There is an official thread, hosted by Pokerstars Dylan, located HERE 2+2 official thread .

There is also the official 'stars website HERE Pokerstars UK - new steps .

Seems there is also a lot of flak being aimed at the "new" owners, mostly coming from the supernova guys.

Not sure if these proposed changes will shaft my Chrome star ambitions, lol.

pleasant dreams

Tuesday 1 September 2015

How many days ....

Welcome back

Missed my aim to get chrome for this month. I thought there were 3 days left 'till the end of August, so I took a night off. There were actually only two days left until the end of the month. doh !

September goals are simple. Get chrome and not go bust :) Easily done if you're only playing off $15, lol.

pleasant dreams

Friday 28 August 2015

Fizzle.

Welcome back

Just a quick note. Not played poker at all for the past 4 months. Not sure why. Got home from work one Friday night and rather than grab a beer and fire up the tables, I fired up the dvd player. NCIS and Game of Thrones box sets being the main culprits.

Started playing again last week. Usual microstakes. Didn't play very well and my balance dwindled. Down to my last few cents, I decided to go out in a blaze of glory (is that even possible at this level, lol) and fired up the Omaha-8 zoom game. Never really been a fan of 6-max and I've no experience here.

Did better than I expected, using the game plan of even though it's 6-max, it's still a game of the nuts. Seems to be working. After a few? thousand? hands, my bankroll is still on one knee, but I've now got $10.

At these stakes I really can't be arsed firing the hand histories into PT4 so I've no real idea about volume or BB/100 etc etc. If I can continue like this, get the 'roll off its' knees and pick up three stars, I might make the time for some analysis. Just have to see how it goes.

If you're wondering why I don't just reload so I can play at a decent $ level, well .... not deposited money on 'stars for 8 years .. just good old fashioned stubbornness, I guess.

pleasant dreams

Friday 13 February 2015

Adverb.

welcome back

So this is my first check-in of the year. Oddly enough, I thought it was longer since my last post. So, what's been happening ?

Poker : still dicking about at the microstakes with an alarming LACK of volume. Checked up on some of my favourite bloggers, some of whom have an alarming LACK of blog activity. One of my favourite bloggers is theGrinder , none other than one Aaron B, pro (US) sit'n'go grinder. I tried to leave a comment but got a weird "you must be logged in to comment" messages. Perhaps Aaron is a bit "concerned" that I'm a fanboy, lol. I admit it, I've been a long term fan of both his blog and his work ethic. Anyway, sent him a message, lets see what, if anything, transpires. :)

Synopsis : not much happening at the felt.

Life : About to change, radically. I've been away from the rail industry for a year and a half. During this time, I've worked a number of "dead-end" jobs. All poorly paid and all ones that I've had to work damned hard at. Simply put, working on the railway was a relative walk in the proverbial park.
I have "tried" to get back on the railway. Very very half heartedly it has to be said.
Literally out of the blue, I found myself being pursued by two different companies ! One beat the other one to an actual Offer of Employment and the package on offer was, literally, to good to refuse. A week on Monday I will be resuming my rail career. I'm under no illusions. I think it will take a whole lot of very hard graft to make this work, but I'll give it a shot.

counter-intuitively

The last time I worked in the rail industry, it was pretty apparent that my work ethic was not particularly good. As the years rolled by, it became easier and easier to take the easy option. Must have been really really annoying for those of whom I was in direct contact with.
Working those dead-end jobs, I had/developed a very very good work ethic. I worked damned hard in those jobs. I was never late or off ill or sneaking off early or hiding in the shadows doing fuck all. Exactly the opposite. I have thought about where this new attitude has come from but I cannot quite put my finger on it. Perhaps my sub-conscious doing a bit of reverse psychology on me.
All I know is, is that it worked.
Now I need to take this work ethic and apply it in my "new" career.

If this new contract requires half as much work and hours as I suspect it will, I have no idea when I'll update. I also have no idea if I'll be able to put in any volume at the felt.
Let's hope I can find time for both.

pleasant dreams