The Adventures of Bacon

Looks like every man does have his price.  Prahlad Friedman the man infamously robbed of millions during the pot ripper scandal has now come on board to be there flagship player.  I sure as hell think he has got a very decent deal.  This signing is massive for UB and they've done a great job at securing a guy who was once cheater from their site and who had in the past not been interested in being affiliated with any sites.

http://blog.ub.com/2011/01/prahlad-friedman-joins-ub/

It seems lots of pros and other people in the poker community are giving Prahlad a load of stick for signing.  I honestly would be very surprised if 99% of people in the poker community would refuse a lucrative deal and a chance to get their name out there.   At the end of the day, haters gunna hate.

Hellmuth in talks with Fulltilt

From Phil's twitter ;

"phil_hellmuth phil_hellmuth 
NOW meeting w Full Tilt Poker!! At "SW Steakhouse" bar at Wynn...Made my biggest bet of last 2 years on LSU (-2)!!!!!!!!
11 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply"

Interesting development.  Despite being the donk hellmuth is, fulltilt are going to try and secure a deal because he's so well known.  I wouldnt be supprised if he was invited to come on board to team full tilt because of his presence in the poker community/and to the donks that watch tv.

Run goooooooood

After fulltilt beating me around, finally starting to have some nice run good.  Just gotta clear this 1k cash bonus that i bought from their fulltilt store and then im thinking of heading over to will hill poker where ive got 60% RB

 

 

fwiw my ipad was being extremely annoying the other night, and was being very buggy and wouldnt let me type out a blog entry, just a title.  Frustrating.  Not sure if it was DC or apple, lame all the same.

Hellmuth leaves UB
Surprised to hear the exit of Hellmuth from UB.  Always figured Hellmuth would stay till he finished with poker and remain as their flagship player.  He's certainly not going to have a problem getting another deal.  No doubt he's the most influential player in the game, simply because he's always attempted to remain in the poker limelight and has been supported through massive media campaigns.  I imagine the most likely outcome will be Hellmuth making his own site, if he doesnt want to go out on a limp like that as he does seem a bit of a life nit i would expect him to get snapped up by another site pretty quickly.

Variance
Poker is bitch.  Im down like 20 BI's in ev, which isnt crazy, but when your shot taking at 100nl and wanting to slug on through it does do your nut in.  Its these periods, where you question your game, self doubt and loss in confidence go hand in hand during these dark times.  Although, ive got my head up, and just going to grind it out and hopefully there is light at the end of this tunnel, and hopefully that light isnt a big fire setting alight my bankroll.

Tony G on his bike
I actually was never a big Tony G fan, he came off so brass and aggogant that he just seemed like a total prick.  Yet ive come to realise that, that's just his poker provado, part of his game, its how he is so fearless and not afraid to play the up and coming best players.  Ive got major respect that he had tha cahoona's to face up to isildur1.  Always gotta love an underdog match!  
The actual match vs isildur1 could have gone his way, there were some huge pots that easily could have changed the outcome of the match.  The rail birds went nuts at the stupid structure that for a good deal of the time forced the match to played with only 1 table.  I hope stars fix this, if they want to create a buzz and get players flocking to their site they really need to have this matches full of action, and one table just doesnt cut it.

Goals for 2011;

1) Become a solid winner at 100nl

2) Start shot taking at 200nl

3) Lose 40 Pounds

Julian Assanage

Its hilarious how much press wikileaks is getting because of the US politicians sparking off all about it.  The amusing thing is, everything that has been leaked is of real no surprise.  Yes, shock the Americans thought the Afghanistan prime minister is weak (it would be surprising if anyone could perform, yes North Korea is deemed as a possible threat, and yes the Italian PM Burlusconi throws sex parties and is horny as hell for anything with a pulse.  Any of this information i assure is common knowledge and wouldn't take much for other powers to realise these thoughts.  

The point im making, is with the Americans over-reacting as they did, they have just given wikileaks huge media coverage and is only going to do it favours for recruiting to its on-line army and essentially lets it meets it ultimate goal, that is spreading 'secret' documents to as many people as possible.  Nice one America.  

I do commend what Assange is doing though, its very important for people to be held accountable for their actions.  Yet over certain things he did so out of taste...such as publishing Americans top 100 overseas areas of interest.  Which basically is a blue print for terrorists to do what they do.  That is not responsible, its only going to work against the efforts of the genuine work wikileaks does.

Its from this story, that gave me the idea to write this blog.  We as poker players need to be held accountable for our actions.  In how many jobs, does the quality of clicking buttons directly affect how successful you are?  The quality of clicks essential taking the most optimum decision, the better our decisions the more we prosper.  Simples.

Last Night - ringing in the new year

Went out with friends to some local bars, got hammered and today am hanginggggggggggggg.  Standard i guess. 

When i awoke from my slumber, i saw a bacon sandwich.  Rare...i assumed the old Queen had made it for me before she went to woke and left it on my bed side cabinet.  Later when she got back i mentioned the sandwich and she said I had done it.   Apparently i came home hammered, made a sandwich, managed to drop loads of cutlery and stuff on the floor and headed for bed and just passed out.  Have zero recollection of getting home so GG me for preparing myself for the morning.   

First off, happy new year everyone xD
A little about myself, im 22 and graduated from Liverpool John Moores university last year with a history degree.  Currently living at home in Droitwich, 30 mins south from Birmingham.  Currently play poker, and helping a friend seek investment for his start-up company on the side.  

Started playing poker back in college just for kicks with friends, although our head of 6form wasnt too keen on us playing cards so that soon was kicked in the butt.  Eventually got my poker fix from the rare 'poker night' where we'd grab some beers and pizza and have ourselves a donkament.
Started playing online in my last year at 6form and was pretty lol bad, was depositing here and there and was doing my part in keeping the micro stakes pool well maintained.    
For some reason i focused on SnG's, going to take a stab in the dark here and say it was down to my friends donkaments as i hadnt even thought about playing cash poker
Played 4 tables for an age, was pretty robotic.  Eventually decided ild 1 table and start to think about the game
    

Mainly played $5-10 6max SnG's with the odd donkament thrown in.

At this point it was the summer before i left for uni, and my mate angus told me about badbeat.com  which is a backing side.  That supply a bankroll, and a coach to move you through the limits.  Sounded awesome, so one interview and a sweat i was an official 'badbeat trader'.   Was given $500 a day and every day my account would get topped up/sweeped and i got to keep 50% of profits+50% of RB.  At the time i was like meh, but figured i can sacrifice money for the coaching they provided.

In reality, the coaches were as good as a Hellmuth is at being graceful.  If anything they damaged my game, given bad advice and generally not that concerned.  They had 30 odd students each and had to play to so i can see why they werent totally focused on individuals.  

Here's my graph with my new acc when i moved to ipoker with badbeat.  Facepalm.  

GG.  Me.

Feeling annoyed and frustrated with SnG's did the obvious and moved over to cash, because 'obviously' it was the format and not my skills that was making me a bad player.

Started off ok.

  

Two years with badbeat, 

Eventually realising i could do better on me own and source my own coach i left badbeat and went back to FT.

Lifetime giraffe for cash on my own acc:

 

Obv swingy as hell, the first  70k hands are hilarious :P

Well thats my poker story so far.  Currently im playing rush 100NL over at FT.  Poss thinking about moving to ipoker cus i can get 60% RB over on will hill.   Just have a bonus i need to clean off first.

Hopefully 2011 will be decent!  Good health, and fortune to all!