North Caroline. Take Your Shirt Off!

This one's for North Carolina! C'mon and raise up
Take your shirt off, twist it 'round yo' hand
Spin it like a helicopter
North Carolina! C'mon and raise up
This one's for you, uh-huh, this one's for who?
Us, us, us

Having moved to the US from England in 2000, I now live in Greensboro, NC.

Anyone reading this blog since the beginning may remember that I bought a very nice (and expensive!) custom-made poker table last July. (Photos on July/August archive.) Anyway, it has had very little use so far other than teaching my 4-year old daughter, Narena, how to play!





So, I've spoken with Damn Ringer from the Cardrunners forum (VT Hokie Poker on Full Tilt) who lives in Charlotte, NC about arranging a live game and a regular meet-up for any poker players from around this area.

Ideally I'd like to get a few players together for a social time; playing poker and drinking, and hopefully it will also be an opportunity for us to improve our game through discussing poker, and to help us maintain an interest in playing.

If anyone reading this lives nearby and is interested, then please either e-mail me, leave a comment here, or PM me on 2+2 or Cardrunners.

Ip Dip Dog Shit, You Are Not It!



Low Stakes or High Stakes? That is the question.

Before I left for England where I had such good fortune during my maid voyage at $5/10, I had planned to play a little $2/4 and to hopefully build a small bank so that I could take a shot a $5/10. However, due to excess alcohol my $5/10 experience came a little earlier than expected.

I'm not naive enough to believe anything other than I ran extremely well that night. Even so I do think that I could probably play nothing but $5/10 right now and be a marginal winner. That almost certainly wouldn't be the best thing to do at this point in time though as I'd find it hard to make the jump to those much larger downswings, and I'd prefer to enter those games with a little more experience and to move up gradually.

Since that glorious wank-all-over-my-laptop session, I have been concentrating mainly on $2/4. It's been going pretty well, although it has taken me a few sessions to evolve my game from it's $1/2 guise. I think initially I was being overly aggressive and giving too much credit to my opponents making plays, and not enough credit to them having legitimate hands! There is a better pedigree of player at these tables of course, but there are still plenty of these too:



I did have my biggest ever downswing (in terms of dollars, not buy-ins) over a 24-hour period 3 days ago, but I then I went on a monster run, winning over $6k in the next 6 hours of play @ $2/4 (spread over 2 days.) Here is that profit/loss valley:



Here's the $2/4 part of the upswing. I ran hot. :)



Here's my progress so far this month. I've only played around 20% of the number of hands that I'd normally have played at this stage of the month. I may have to drop down from $1/2 though as I'm showing a loss there!




Muppet of the Day #17: radish_rop

Thanks radish_rop. You just cost me a sh1t-load!

Raise the f**king flop, so we can get it in there! Terrible flop call!

I knew MP2 had JT, but what the f**k could I do? lol

(OK, it may not be the worst play in the world but it pissed me off! :p )

Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
LeggoPoker.com Hand History Converter

MP1: $1,276.95
MP2: $400
CO: $74
BTN: $441
SB: $475.30
BB: $331.80
Hero (UTG): $418.70
radish_rop: $191.80

Pre-Flop: Ac Ad dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero calls $4, radish_rop calls $4, MP1 folds, MP2 calls $4, CO folds, BTN calls $4, SB folds, BB checks

Flop: ($22) 9c Ah 8d (5 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $18, radish_rop calls $18, MP2 calls $18, 2 folds

Turn: ($76) 7c (3 Players)
Hero bets $44, radish_rop raises to $100, MP2 raises to $156, Hero calls $112, UTG+1 raises to $169.80 and is All-In, MP2 calls $13.80, Hero calls $13.80

River: ($585.40) 5d (3 Players - 1 is All-In)
Hero bets $226.90 and is All-In, MP2 calls $208.20 and is All-In

Results: $1,001.80 Pot ($3 Rake)
MP2 showed Js Tc (a straight, Jack high) and WON $998.80 (+$598.80 NET)
Hero showed Ac Ad (three of a kind, Aces) and LOST (-$400 NET)
radish_rop mucked 8s 8h (three of a kind, Eights) and LOST (-$191.80 NET)


radish_pop.....