Ok, first installment of a spluttering and proabably sometimes incoherent confessional from a part time poker player.

Those familiar with me will know I'm Richard, live in London UK, am 44 and live with my partner and 2 step kids, aged 19 and 14.

My job's reasonably well paid, though with the trend towards outsourcing work to GodLikeRoy's ancestral home, the future of IT in this country is very unsure and the prospect of redundancy is ever present. I play online poker to try to make a little more income for holidays, home improvements etc, and for the enjoyment of winning.

I started playing casually about 4 years ago, and don't feel I've progressed very much since, relative to my opponents.

I started witih 10NL 6max games at Ladbrokes, found them easy to beat, moved up to 25NL (though this was before I understood anything about bankrolls LOL), beat the game comfortably (this is before I bought PT so I don't have any stats), moved up again to 50NL, still at Ladbrokes, and started to struggle a bit.

Against those crazy Euros, 6max seemed to be too much of a crap shoot for someone playing so few hands per month (only 2k at that time), as the variance was horrible, so I switched to full ring 50NL at the same site and began to win again. I found BTP and the articles on PT, bought the software and started reading books and BTP posts. my full ringg stats at this point were positively BK6ish ie 14/5, and frankly poker was pretty boring.

I felt that the games were so predictable that, as a developer, it would be quite possible for example, to produce an algorithm that would win at these games, as most of the time I was hardly paying attention, and taking large chunks of money from stations and maniacs was more than sufficient to offset smaller losses to good players. I guess that's just another way of saying that a few years ago the ABC TAG style was profitable at full ring.

With 10k hands behind me I moved up to 100NL full ring at Ladbrokes, and found my TAG style being exploited by a few decent players who picked up on a tendency to fold too easily to flop min raises when OOP. I also started running seriously cold for the first time.

Unsure of my game and bored stiff by full ring, I followed the BTP crowd back to 6max (50NL), and got the taste for bonuses via Golden Riviera (thanks Kent), then Bodog (still a favourite), via Crypto whose games I hated, and onto Party and Tribeca, where I began to show a decent, though not stratospheric, win rate (5PTBB).

I moved up to 100NL and started IMming chat and advice from ua1176 and the recently departed Allstar (sniff), managed to weather a horrendous 12BI Tribeca downswing thanks mainly to ua's advice to let the BR take the strain, and AS for letting me sweat him while he totally dismantled the 1/2 games. I remember asking what reads he had when making one particularly successful play, and his answer was "my read is that he is a donk". LOL

Post UIGEA or w/e it's called, I've been playing 100NL 6max at iPoker (BetFred mainly because their monthly reloads are about 45% RB, it's PT and GT/PAHUD compatible and the games are soft during weekday evenings and weekends ie ~35/10 with a mixture of stations and weak tighties), and Party for the occasional reload, though it's increasingly full of 20/15 types and I don't do very well against them.

In short, thanks to 3 crap months on the trot including July, I'm hitting the $7K bankroll for some money and moving back down to 50NL, where I hope I can play with more confidence and maybe get some good advice from regulars here on hands I'll be posting.

So without further ado, I give you...



subtitled: The Player They Wanted To Ban
subsubtitled: Help me to not split infinitives!

ps Who's going to be first to reply with a tl;dr?
pps Is it OK here to say how much I hate America? Just checking.

"Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every heart revealed itself, where every wine flowed.

One evening I took Beauty in my arms - and I thought her bitter - and I insulted her.

I steeled myself against justice.

I fled. O witches, O misery, O hate, my treasure was left in your care!

I have withered within me all human hope. With the silent leap of a sullen beast, I have downed and strangled every joy.

I have called for executioners; I want to perish chewing on their gun butts. I have called for plagues, to suffocate in sand and blood. Unhappiness has been my god. I have lain down in the mud, and dried myself off in the crime-infested air. I have played the fool to the point of madness.

And springtime bestowed upon me the frightful laughter of the idiot. "

Rimbaud

Sweet. I always wondered why you never had a journal. Something else to read at work now.

tl;dr... not really, but i have to accommodate your request, right?

yes, it's perfectly ok to state how much you hate america in your journal, but we all know that it's really a love-hate relationship.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MAYBE IF I START A JOURNAL THEY'LL THINK I CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING THEN THEY WONT BAN ME...WP SIR!

LOL.

NH.

Are the mods delketing stuff here lately?

Lol, I think it would've been the coolest thing ever if he came back from his trip and his entire journal was gone.

Back from a few days away. Seems like some people still haven't grown up <<sigh>>

Broadstairs in Kent was exactly the unspoilt old English seaside town we'd hoped to find:









and it's only a couple of hours away, so I guess we'll be getting a few weekend breaks there when the weather's good.