General: How to add a comment to my blog entries

There has been some confusion about how to add a comment to a blog entry, probably caused when I selected the "anti-spam" option for comments, which I have now removed.

If you would like to add a comment to an entry, then you can follow these steps

• at the bottom of each article you will see a line saying "Posted by Mike at xx am 0 comments"
• click the "0 comments" link to add a comment.
• this will popup a new browser window
• enter your comment in the box provided
• you then need to choose an identity. If you are shy, you can click the "anonymous" link, or you can click "other" if you want to specify your name (in this case you can freetype your name, there is no need to register)
• then click on the "publish your comment" button
• this should then redraw the window with a comment at the top saying "Your comment has been saved"
• you can now close this window (there is a link to do this on the top left or just click the X)

The only other thing to mention is that any comment you make will be viewable by anyone in the world looking at the blog, so it is generally a good idea to not mention things like you bank details in any entry :-)

Hope this helps you to add your views and comments to my blog pages

Poker: First trip to Farnborough Poker Club

With the closure of Reading Casino's card room for refurbishment until December (!!) I was happy to hear from Jon that there is a new Poker club in Farnborough just opened, TC Poker (see http://www.tcpoker.co.uk/index.htm for details) so decided to go down and try it out last night (Tuesday)

The slight drawback is that the games start late (for a work night :-) ) so went for the £40 no limit, no rebuy tournament on the basis that it would finish quicker than a rebuy tournament (for better or worse)

The club itself is basically one room crammed with poker tables, but gives it a friendly, cosy type atmosphere. The snooker club and is across the corridor and provides a bar and sport on TV in case you get knocked out early ! I like the idea that a dealer is provided on every table and that there are other games going on apart from the tournament itself. My only small criticism was the slightly chaotic organization, but I guess that will improve over time

The turnout for the tournament was disappointing but suited me to a certain degree as it meant the game would finish earlier. 18 players started, spread on two tables with the top 3 places being paid. The blinds go up every 30 minutes so is quite gentle to begin with. Game started about 8:40pm

Jon was on my table and we both seemed to get dealt good cards over the first few hands, but luckily didn't clash with each other. On about the 6th hand, Jon raised after the flop and got re-raised ending up with him being all-in against one other player. Job showed AQ with an A on the flop, the other guy had A7 so was well behind. Unluckily for Jon another 7 fell on the river taking him out after about 30 minutes play !

I was taking it steady to begin with and didn't have any hairy moments in the early stages. My early decent cards had given me a few hundred more than the 4000 starting chips but with some players busted out already was below average stack size (an unfortunate trend which continued all tournament for me) One big hand that hurt me was just before we went down to 1 table. Playing short handed (5 players) I got A4 diamonds on the 400 big blind when the button raised to 800 With the small blind folding I decided to call and see the flop. The flop of all medium cards included 2 diamonds so checked then called another 800 bet from the button. The guy in the button was actually Tony (as in the "T" of TC poker) and he told the dealer "no diamonds" . Of course the dealer then dealt blanks for me on the turn and river which were checked down. Tony's pair of 9 beat my A high, leaving me with about 3500 chips with 10 players remaining.

Now with 10 players on the table I had to tighten up, but luckily drew the button seat so had some time. With my chip stack going critically low I had to make a move with JT suited on the BB but luckily only got called by T9 off suit so doubled up. One off the button I got AJ so went all in and got called by the BB also with AJ and we split the pot. My final hand was A6 but felt the players behind me would fold unless they had a hand. Unfortunatlety for me the BB had AQ and I went out in 8th place around 11pm

The game was friendly and entertaining, the players were varying in standard so felt I had a chance to do well, so all-in all a good game and a good place to play poker.

Will probably try to arrange a "Camberley Boyz" trip to have a game or two there sometime soon !

Poker: my return to UB (part 2 - win myself a Lotus drive ?)

Having recently gone in my Lotus "experience"( http://sceaga.blogspot.com/2006/08/cars-lotus-track-experience.html ) I really want to go on the next level which is the one day "Driver Training" course (http://www.grouplotus.com/media/car/oth/Driver%20Training%202006.pdf)

I have already put aside £100 towards this event and intend to ask for money for Xmas and Birthdays, gradually saving up...... then I had a fantastic idea ! Why not invest my £100 into UB and try to increase it to the required £450, which means not only do I have fun playing poker but also gives me practise at the higher stakes than I would normally play. Sounds good in theory :-)

My £100 equates to $180, so planned to play $100 (+9) and $50 (+5) 6 seater tournaments giving me a few bucks to play around with.

Logging on to play the first night, there was no action on the $100 or $50 tables, so ended up putting $40 into a $3/$6 cash game. This was actualy quite scarey as I was really underfunded (so should've invested more or gone for a lesser value!!) and there was a very aggressive guy playing: raising pre flop and betting every flop. Luckily for me, my third hand dealt to me was KK so got heads up with the aggressive bettor and no ace fell on the flop. His large bet into me was willingly called (despite me being all-in) and he showed 7-2 off suit which was no good ! As I had doubled up, then decided to do the sensible thing and leave the table as quick as my fingers could click

Net time I managed to find a $50 game, but played badly and finished 6th ! My $100 game was a little more lively and was chip lead a lot of the time until we got down to 3 players. Probably tightened up too much and frittered away my chips, ending 3rd..... (only 2 place pay out)

Then played another $55 game, but despite a good showing early on still fell at the last hurdle only managing 3rd again !

I am down to about $3 so play the 0.01/0.02 Omaha hi/low (Pot limit) The game really does my head in but is great fun. I generally seem to be able to win the low hand in these games :-) Actually work up to $6 before falling back to $4 so call it a night. The next time I play however, somehow manage to work my $4 up to $14 before getting involved with a massive pot with 4 players all-in and loose the lot (my Full House was second best hand to a higher full house, but thats Omaha for you)

So my dream of an early return to Lotus is in tatters, and any family members reading this will know what to give me for Xmas ;-)

Did have a good time playing (winning would have been even better fun of course) so maybe I don't need to register with http://www.gamcare.com/ just yet :-)

Poker: My return to UB to play for "free"

Having recently blown my stack I found myself trying to decide which site to load my account with. In the end I decided to wait until after the Casino trip (1st Oct) to give maximum funds out of my "Casino Fund" for that trip.

I happened to notice that UB now allow you to use your UB points to enter tournaments (http://www.ultimatepoker.com/promotions/tournament-points.html) both for points and also direct into cash tournaments. Having played with UB for years, I had about 5'000 UB points, so have got some "free" tournament entries and is the best User Interface (in my view) so like playing their site. I decided to try to get my points up by entering points only cash games (NL Hold'em) Problem is I treated my points like play chips (as did a lot of people it seemed) and soon frittered a lot of them away. In order to get some value, I entered a $10+1 tournament for "free" which was great, but came 6th (which wasn't so great !)

I am down to about 20 UB points now, will take me a little while to get back to a reasonable level again !

Poker: September 2006 home tourney

I had a good feeling about the game this month, felt relaxed and ready for action. Just as well really as I had Martin and Sean to my right and Darren W to my left. Even Jon was in the mood to gamble so the all-ins came thick and fast. My first couple of hands set the tone of the night for me...... My AJ suited getting well beaten by "inferior" starting hands and similarly with AK. Later I went in with 87 suited and won a big pot with 2 pair, so seems a bit of "reverse strategy" will win the pots tonight :-)

Soon after I dropped a significant size stack to Sean with AJ suited (again) against his pocket 8's so the chips were coming and going like water and wee

I did managed to pull it all together and by the end of rebuy period, had around 2400 chips placing me just below average chips (2875 at this stage) Sean and Zoran both had around 7500 in chips and Derek was tournament low stack at 900. On the other table, Bill was chip lead at around 5000 chips and had Alex and Steve with 1000 chips low stacked (they obviously hadn't been as busy as my table!)

First hand after the rebuys closed and Alex was first out, closely followed by Derek on my table and two more following soon after. I got moved to the other table to load balance but didn't get a hand to play. On big blind I saw A7 suited and moved all in, with Simon W calling with KT putting me 3-2 favorite. Unfortunately Simon hit a full house by the turn to take me out in 9th and giving us the final table.

Zoran was surprisingly first out on the second hand of the final table, so the practise he got in Las Vegus had not helped much tonight ;-) Simon W was now a large chip lead and looking dangerous, especially when next hand Sean took him on with 2 pair, but lost to a higher two pair ! Sean seemed slightly stunned but still wandered off to play in the cash game that had started up - a true gambler :-)

It was looking like an early finish for everyone with Simon W hoovering up all the chips, but we did end up going to the final hand with Simon W having 23'600 chips after putting in his small blind and Simon having the remaining 19'400 (plus 2000 in the blind) Simon W had a rubbish hand so threw it away to take a very determined and well deserved first place.

Again an eventful, exciting and slightly mad game..... but enjoyed by all

Results posted to Statsgenie as normal (http://www.statsgenie.com/poker/default.aspx?HH=1&OrgID=1499)

Poker: APAT online tournament

Circumstances combined to allow me to enter APATs "Italian Amateur Poker Open" online tournament yesterday.

Wasn't quite sure how many people would have entered, as normally I wouldn't have much chance to play poker online on a Saturday night ! As it turned out, there were 206 entrants.

I played pretty steadily and managed to stay above the average chip count for the first couple of hours without much problem. Stayed out of trouble and played selected hands with aggression, which seemed to work OK.

In the third hour, my 20'000 chips represented just below the average chip count, and the blinds + ante were around 10 times my stack, so decided I needed to get a bit busier. Unfortunately I seemed to choose the wrong moment to make a move... although AJ under the gun isn't a great hand, decided to make a standard raise. One player re-raised me and as he only had another 2000 chips decided to put him all in. He had AK which stood up and I was down to 10'000 chips. Next hand I was on the big blind and got dealt KK, great I thought, will get some chips back.... but no, everyone folded (including the small blind) ! On the small blind I got dealt KQ. Everyone folded round to a late position who raised. Everyone folded to me, so decided he was trying to steal so went all in. AS it happened he had QQ so blitzed me and I was down to 250 chips.. Now on the button my 87 suited was enough to go all in but never stood a chance

Ended up finishing 57 of the 206 runners, so not too bad, but those two key hands really did me in. I should've just called the AJ to see what happened, but my small mistake there cost me the possibility of a good finished. (well, that and my moment of madness with KQ :-) )

Oh well that's Poker :-)