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In a complicated deal that is either going to create a market monster or an absolute clusterfuck-bureaucratic-nightmare, Bwin.party has announced a partnership with Boyd Gaming and MGM Resorts.

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Online Casino operators MGM Resorts International and Boyd Gaming Corp. are teaming with a major European online poker operator to prepare to offer Internet gambling in the United States if it’s ever explicitly legalized.

The casino companies and Gibraltar-based bwin.party digital entertainment plc advised Monday that if U.S. law changes…as many in the industry hope…each of the three companies would take a stake in a new entity that would run online gambling under PartyPoker and other brands.

Bwin.party’s co-CEO, Jim Ryan, told the media that his company, which owns the World Poker Tour, has been hoping to return to the U.S. Bwin.party stopped offering online poker here after a 2006 law made it illegal to for banks to process funds for the activity.

“We have been putting in place the foundation, if you will, to re-enter the market,” Ryan said.
The deal will help the companies build a large enough pool of players to make the business profitable, he said.

Bwin.party, formed earlier this year when online poker operator PartyGaming merged with online sports betting company bwin Interactive Entertainment. The combined company is the largest publicly traded online gambling company; together, their net revenue last year was 814 million euros. PartyGaming had half the U.S. market before it left in 2006.

Ryan said bwin has been preparing for scrutiny from gambling regulators.

Not all online gambling stopped in the U.S., and several poker websites powered along after the 2006 law passed. But the Justice Department has cracked down on several top sites, including PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker, accusing their executives of various activities such money laundering and fraud.

MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren said it will be important to have tough new online poker laws because companies that now offer poker online to Americans have hurt the entire gambling industry’s reputation.

“Whenever there’s a problem anywhere, it reflects poorly on the gaming industry, of which we are a major player,” Murren said. “The federal government needs to address this. It cannot wish it away.”

Ryan said he thought his company did the right thing in leaving the US, even as the other operators appeared to flourish.

“Did we sit back and watch in envy and knowing full well that we (had) had 50 percent of the market at that point? Perhaps, but we never questioned our decision,” he said.

The companies are pushing for legalization at the federal level. They still would pursue online poker if only states legalize it, but it’s not clear whether state-by-state legislation would comply with federal laws.

In addition to setting up the new entity, MGM Resorts and Boyd plan to use bwin.party software to run online poker sites under their own brands, which insiders say is a very smart move.

Boyd CEO Keith Smith told the press he thinks it’s important for the companies to be able to move quickly if the law changes, to be first to jump on a U.S. online market that once generated as much as $6 billion yearly in revenue.

“We want our investors to know we’ve been aggressive in positioning the company,” Smith said.
MGM Resorts owns part or all of 18 casinos in Nevada, Mississippi, Michigan and Illinois.

Boyd owns 17 casinos in Nevada, New Jersey, Mississippi, Illinois, Indiana, and Louisiana.

Bwin.party is licensed in France and Italy and is pursuing online gambling licenses in Spain and Denmark, Ryan said. The company also has Australia, New Zealand and Canada well in its sights.

Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment offers online casino game onlines, poker online games, live dealer, sports betting, bingo and a range other casino free online games.

Some of their most popular Hollywood and movie themed game onlines include Sinatra, Rambo, The Terminator, Saturday Night Fever, Gone With The Wind, High Noon, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, The Amazing Spider-Man.

Read more about Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment here.

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The last couple of months have been the most trying of the last couple of years. This is largely because I wasn’t winning, and boy can poker be stressful when you aren’t winning, especially over a long period of time.

It is hard to put my finger on exactly what was going wrong, and this can largely be attributed to variance, as the variance in poker gives you such problems when analysing your results over a relatively short period of time. Was I playing bad? Was I running bad? To quote Grandpa Simpson, I think it was a little from column A and a little from column B.

One thing that I’m pretty sure happened is that I became somewhat of a Mental Game fish. Those of you who are familar with The Mental Game of Poker will know what I mean by that, there were just certain things I was doing that are clearly not good for your frame of mind.

Worrying too much
With each day and week that I wasn’t winning, I was becoming more and more preoccupied with my short term results. I think it is sensible to check your results as infrequently as you can manage, and I’ve only ever found checking them during your play to be counter productive. But I had gotten to the point where I was treating the refresh button on Hold ‘em Manager as though it would give me a penny every time I did so.

Also, I had gotten to the point where I was much too emotionally involved in the outcome of every showdown. I was hoping the cards had magically inherited a memory to let them know that I had been getting screwed over rather a lot lately, and perhaps they should let me hold this one time!

The funny thing is, with the quantity of poker I have played over the last couple of years (and we’re talking well over 40,000 SNGs here) I thought I had become immune to these kind of concerns. How can you care about individual showdowns when you have faced hundreds of thousands of them?

I guess I have been pretty lucky over the last couple of years to have not faced too many downswings, and I hadn’t been through a period as trying as this for a long time, which instigated me taking so many backward steps in my mental free online game.

Although I’m not too sure how becoming a Mental Game fish impacted on my actual virtual online games, I do think I lost my ‘mojo’ somewhat. Winning breeds confidence, and I think the opposite is true as well. Although I couldn’t give you any strategy specifics, I think you tend to play a better virtual game when you are confident. You perhaps question your decisions less and find more excuses to raise instead of more excuses to fold.

The lack of confidence was seeping through to home life. I’d gone from being a world beater who was printing money, to worrying I was just a pretender who wasn’t going to be able to pay the rent in a few months time! My wife was starting to get a bit concerned…

Juggling too much?
My aspirations to make Supernova Elite next year (whereby I was trying to sustain SNE pace in the hours I like to play to see how plausible it would be) had led me to take on a little too much. I was mixing 6-man, 9-man, 18-man and even the odd 45-man and 180-man SNGs into my sessions. All of these virtual online gamess have very different strategies, and although I felt like I knew what I was doing in all of them, there is a difference between being finely tuned in a fre online game, and knowing roughly what you are doing. I think it’s impossible to play such a variety of virtual games optimally.

I don’t know why I didn’t recognise it sooner, I guess I was just being stubborn. I thought I was good enough to win at all the virtual games. Also, I was free online game selecting so thought that would make up for my potential lack of sharpness in certain online games. I had kept a similar schedule in May and had done well,

Also, I think the 6-max SNGs, which obviously require a lot of short-handed play, and therefore attention, were hogging too much of my concentration, which was impacting on my general play

Variance?
One of the main things that was getting me down was that I was losing money at 18-mans, which I considered to be my best online game, and is the type of SNG I have made the most money in lifetime.

Looking at my results it was really a tale of two buy-ins. I started off with my worst downswing ever in 18-mans altogether, however I recovered very well in $30 virtual online gamess, yet relentlessly plunged in $60+ virtual online gamess. I really can’t make sense of the results considering I don’t believe the $60+ 18-mans are any more difficult than the $30 fre online games. I suppose the most likely explanation is variance, these are still small samples we are dealing with, but it just doesn’t feel like variance when you’re on a 110 buy-in downswing. It feels like anal rape (presumably…).

$30 18-man SNGs (1st Sept – 23rd Oct 2011)

$60 & $100 18-man SNGs (1st Sept – 23rd Oct 2011)

It looks like September and October are the months where I went from being one of the best SNG regs to an FPP Pro:

All SNGs 1st Jan – 31st Aug 2011

All SNGs 1st Sept – 23rd Oct 2011 (sigh)

Change of scenery.
It was a $2.5k losing session (right at the end of that graph) that proved to be the final straw. I was just blanking everything for fun and I decided that I couldn’t continue on as I was.

I took a day off and I made myself a spreadsheet to track my progress for the remainder of the year, something which has always made me feel a little bit better after a downswing. I think it’s because it helps me re-establish that it is the long-term that matters, and over the long term I am capable of playing a lot of SNGs, and (hypothetically at least) making good money.

I decided to move over to playing 45-man SNGs, 180-man SNGs and turbo MTTs. I had been contemplating this for a while as I had been finding it difficult to put in two sessions a day with the schedule I was keeping. I’d either have a depressing morning session and not want to play in the afternoon, have a good morning and try to protect the win and not play (see, I was a mental online game fish), or just be so burnt out from the stress caused by the emotion I was investing in my morning session that I felt I couldn’t deal an afternoon session. By moving over to fre online games with sync breaks (sync breaks wiiiiiii!), I could instead play one long session, as I had done for most of 2010.

I also thought it wouldn’t hurt to lower my average stake, and figured I would be able to cope with the downswings better if a $2.5k losing session were an impossibility.

After grinding mostly 18-mans for the last year, I thought the change would do me good. It would also give me the chance to reset and start from 0, rather than always trying to dig myself out of the holes I had fallen in through September and October. Also, it feels like a new challenge, which is somewhat motivating.

So although I was aware that I could be making a decision that was based on incomplete information (ie. reading too much into variance), and moving over to game onlines I might have a lower hourly rate in the long-term,  I felt like there were too many positives related to mindset to not go with it.

I’ve been keeping this new schedule for a week now and I feel much better for it. I’ve only checked on my results two or three times. I feel much more accepting of the daily variance involved. I know that you can go on runs where you blank 50 180-mans without doing much wrong, so it would be silly being concerned with how you are doing on each individual day. Having a nonchalant attitude towards showdowns and results is definitely much healthier!

I also really like the 5 minute break I get every hour. It seems to make the day go faster as often a break will pop-up and I’ll be surprised it’s rolled around already. It’s also good to get your eyes away from the screen for that time, and I think it allows you to stay “fresher” throughout the session. I’ve also been putting in good volume, playing a good long session each day I play.

It doesn’t hurt that I’ve got off to a good start, but more importantly I think I’ve got my mojo back

Late Friday night — while a lot of us were watching St. Louis win Game 7 of the World Series — NBC’s “Dateline” took the opportunity to share the sordid tale of professional poker player Ernest “Ernie” Scherer III. Was another instance of poker turning up in the mainstream in a not-so-flattering light, I suppose, although I’d hope most who saw the program wouldn’t take Scherer as representative of poker players as a whole.

I actually flipped over a couple of times on Friday during the commercials to catch some of the show. Then over the weekend I had a chance to watch the whole thing online.

I’d heard bits and pieces of the story beforehand. Scherer had been a minor character on the pro poker circuit for a few years, known by many of the players but not a guy the average fan would know about.

As far as tourneys are concerned, Scherer’s career peaked in 2006 and 2007 with a handful of WSOP cashes, including one final table in ’06 in the $3,000 limit hold’em event won by Bill Chen. That’s Scherer in the Full Tilt Poker cap on Chen’s right in the picture below (a shot repeatedly shown during the “Dateline” show). According to Hendon Mob, Scherer racked up nearly $340,000 worth of winnings from 2003 to 2008.

Scherer was found guilty of killing both of his parents in their Pleasanton, California home in March 2008. He was arrested in February 2009, tried and found guilty in early 2011, then sentenced to consecutive life terms for the murders.

Introducing the story, “Dateline” host Lester Holt set up the program by referring to the murders of Ernest Scherer, Jr. and his wife Charlene Abendroth, then introduced Ernie as a possible suspect. The opening immediately connects “poker” with a certain “lifestyle,” delivering what sounds like an implicit judgment on what it means to be a pro player.

“Their son, it turned out, played poker for a living,” says Holt. “Could that lifestyle have had something to do with it?”

The angle subsequently taken by the show — titled “The Player” — was to present the story of the murders and investigation mostly from the perspective of Adrian Solomon, a woman who’d had a two-year relationship with Scherer from early 2006 until early 2008 (i.e., until just prior to the murders).

Thus a lot of the show consists of correspondent Keith Morrison interviewing Solomon. While visiting Las Vegas on business, Solomon met Scherer and became romantically involved with him, their mostly long-distance relationship eventually progressing to a point where they were talking about marriage and children before they finally broke it off.

Scherer is introduced as from a Mormon family and college-educated. We also learn he was an Eagle scout, a detail I found kind of interesting. You might recall how last week Rep. Joe Barton mentioned in that House hearing he’d learned poker in the Boy Scouts. Inspired by that comment, I ended up looking into a few other connections between poker and scouting, writing about it for my next Epic Poker “Community Cards” column (which will appear tomorrow).

Anyhow, Solomon notes early on how it seemed a little odd that Scherer would be a professional poker player with such a background. In other words, being educated, having some sort of religious upbringing, and becoming an Eagle Scout all seem to contrast with the image of someone playing cards for a living.

Scherer represented himself as a successful player to Solomon, although as the show eventually spells out he was losing a lot more than he was winning. He was also lying to her about just about everything else — including the fact that he was married and had a child. In fact, it turns out he had a few different mistresses in various locations.

Sticking with Solomon’s P.O.V., we learn with her about the especially brutal double-murder of Scherer’s parents, then leave her for a while to follow the detectives’ initially unsure investigation. Later in the story we hear about Scherer trying later on to revive their relationship, telling Solomon he “was thinking of changing his lifestyle, quitting poker” if she’d take him back. But by then detectives have told her about his wife and child and she’s not interested in any such reunion. She’s also struggling to figure out how her “read” of Scherer had been so far off.

It takes a while, but investigators eventually are able to come up with a motive for Scherer. They’re also able (more or less) to place him at the scene of the crime the night of the murders.

Scherer was deep in debt, something like $150,000 in the hole between credit cards and what he owed to casinos. He’d also borrowed $616,000 from his father to buy a house. He couldn’t get a loan, it is explained, because banks had become “not quite so sanguine anymore about the security of poker player’s income.”

Scherer had missed a payment to his father just before the murders. Also, it was determined that he stood to inherit half the parents’ considerable estate on his 30th birthday, just a few months away at the time of the killings. “‘His house of cards was collapsing before his very eyes,’” the prosecutor would say later when making the case against Scherer.

Eventually the detectives are able to produce a few different pieces of evidence that together appear to put Scherer at the home on the night of the killings, too. Scherer’s wife tries to get him to confess in a recorded phone call, their conversation described as involving her working a “bluff” and the two “playing” each other like poker players. That doesn’t quite elicit anything damning, but there’s a ton of circumstantial evidence that ultimately proved persuasive enough to get the guilty verdict.

It sounds like Scherer’s status as a poker player didn’t help him much, either, when it came to the jurors’ consideration of the case. In fact, one of the more interesting aspects of the story was how the prosecutors, the defense, and the jury all understood that Scherer’s “lifestyle” was being judged along with all of the evidence and argumentation regarding the actual crime.

“He is very proficient at misinformation and disinformation,” explained one of the investigators, alluding at once to Scherer’s poker playing and to his allegedly having planted some misleading evidence at the crime scene.

“‘It goes back to him thinking ‘I’m at a table and there’s all kinds of chips in the middle,’” says another, characterizing what he believed to be Scherer’s thinking while on the stand. “‘I’ve bluffed some of the best,’” he continues, “‘and these 12 people, they’re nothing compared to some of the poker players that I’ve bluffed so I’m gonna give it my best.’”

The defense apparently made much of the fact that prejudice against his “lifestyle” was clouding over the fact that the physical evidence connecting their client to the murders was all circumstantial. Morrison alludes to that argument near the end when interviewing a couple of jurors, saying how the defense lawyers were “claiming it was his lifestyle the prosecution put on trial.”

“Somebody should,” cracks one of the jurors in response, adding that “all other things being equal, his lifestyle counted against him.”

These “Dateline”-type shows can be engrossing sometimes. One of my all-time favorite films is Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line, the 1988 documentary that kind of provided the template both in form and content for all of these procedural-slash-true crime news shows. But I don’t really think this one would’ve grabbed my attention if it weren’t for the poker connection. In fact, it kind of felt like there were a number of details about the actual case that got glossed over in favor of promoting Solomon’s story and her tangential involvement.

Just as there was no “smoking gun” in the actual case, there was no explicit charge against poker as being to blame for what happened. I guess, though, it’s possible some who watched might feel there’s some “circumstantial evidence” suggesting as much. The image of poker or poker pros presented by the show certainly wasn’t favorable, and the show pretty much ignored the possibility that there was such a thing as a poker pro living a healthy “lifestyle.”

Solomon did note that being a poker player hardly made one more or less likely to be a murderer, although it was suggested throughout that his ability to deceive at the tables characterized how he related to her and others elsewhere, too. Another woman — another of Scherer’s girlfriends — was also shown explicitly saying “that’s a very far jump from being a poker player to murdering your parents.” But even she was speaking of poker as a strike against him, something that had to be forgiven, so to speak, along with his many other liaisons of which she was aware during their relationship.

That said, I don’t necessarily fault the producers for using poker and gambling as they did here. Truthfully, while the great majority of us can only speculate about what ultimately motivates a killer, the “lifestyle” of reckless gambling and accumulating significant debt wasn’t without significance in this particular story.

And really, there’s a lot worse here to be sorry about than poker’s image taking yet another hit.

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Americain’s defence of the Melbourne Cup makes him the benchmark horse for tomorrow’s running of the great race.

As the favourite and the topweight, the French stayer is a logical choice, but winning the cup two years in a row has always been a difficult task and how he stacks up against other historical aspects of the race also have be taken into account.

Only five horses have won the cup two or more times.

The great Makybe Diva won it three years in a row from 2003 to 2005 but the only other horses to win in successive years were the first ever winner Archer (1861-62), Rain Lover (1968-69) and Think Big (1974-75), while Peter Pan won in split years (1932 and 1934).

Americain will carry the prestigious number one as the topweight and since saddlecloths were first recorded in 1877, it has won 10 cups, second only to number four, (Drunken Sailor) and number 12 (Red Cadeaux) with 11 wins each.

Lucas Cranach has drawn gate 11, the same barrier Americain won from last year, and which has won a record eight cups since barriers were first allocated in 1924 and six since starting stalls as we know them, were first used in 1958.

The bogey barrier is 18 (Hawk Island) which is winless.

Liking a horse’s name has been a popular way for many to make their cup selection and clearly horses starting with the initial “T” (The Verminator and Tullamore) have had the edge in the cup with 16 wins.

Four and five-year-olds share a record 43 cups each but the recent trend has been towards the more seasoned stayer.

While six-year-olds have only won 29 cups, six have been in the past 13 years while two of 10 seven-year-old winners figure in the same period.

Looking at the jockeys, and it is best to choose those with plain-bodied silks (56 wins) such as Jukebox Jury, Fox Hunt, Illo, Lost In the Moment, Modun, At First Sight and Shamrocker.

It is best to follow in-form horses as 20 of the 30 winners have won or placed at their last start.

Americain would be the 27th outright favourite to win the cup while seven equal favourites have won but horses at $9 and $11 have been the most successful with 12 and 14 wins respectively.

Horses at $5 and $17 (11 wins each) and $6 (10 wins) also have good records while there have been 16 winners at $31 or longer. *Prediction: *Illo from Fox Hunt, Tullamore, and Shamrocker.

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UTG raises to $107.50, Hero calls $102.65 all in, MP1 calls $41 all in, MP2 calls $105.65 all in, CO calls $101.50 all in, 1 fold, SB calls $102.50 all in, 1 fold

Flop: ($560.45) 4 5 J (6 players – 5 are all in)





Turn: ($560.45) 3 (6 players – 5 are all in)


River: ($560.45) J (6 players – 5 are all in)

Final Pot: $560.45
Hero shows 2 6
MP1 shows A 2
MP2 shows 4 Q
CO shows 5 6
SB shows 8 K
UTG shows 7 T
Hero wins $244.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Pretty sick to go from having only 12% equity to ship the pot on the flop to binking the turn and then fading the river re-suck. On TOP of the pot, that hand was worth a cool $1,344 more for winning it. Before I even hit the milestone hand I was having a pretty decent day at the tables so it’s nice to be in the black for now. I may just need to hit a few more milestones to keep my profit so let’s go for number 3 tomorrow lol!

An ad buy on NFL Sunday? Zynga Poker is getting serious.

We don’t expect Zynga to make any earth-shaking moves into poker until after they IPO. But an ad buy on espn.com–even if they don’t come near the $20M+ PokerStars is rumored to have dropped annually with The Globals Sports Leader, shows there is at least some appetite on their part to broaden the profile of their product and explore new customer acquisition channels.

Zynga Poker, the world’s largest online room with over 29M monthly users (and 8M daily), is now advertising on espn.com.

Is the 800lb gorialla that is Zynga Poker awaking?

For a company that barely focuses on pushing its poker product (it’s like the red-headed step-child internally at the company compared to the ‘Ville products), the advertising could signify a major shift.

Post-Black Friday, most industry insiders pegged Zynga as a potential “winner,” including us. But the platform itself wasn’t anywhere near what PokerStars and Full Tilt customers were used to experiencing (however, worth noting, it’s come a long way over the past six months).

Related Posts

1. 
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2. 
   Zynga Poker: Hacker Steals $12 Million in Virtual Chips
3. 
   Zynga Acquires Poker Table Ratings Team

We weren’t deterred after finding out only five women entered last year’s event. Nor were we deterred after only three entered this year.

PokerStars currently has their “Road to 100 Billion” promotion going on, which makes grinding seem more worthwhile even though I have bricked like 4 of these promos before (for those who are unaware of what I’m talking about, read the details here:http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/promotions/100-billion/).

FORTUNATELY, I can no longer say that I’ve bricked em’ all because tonight I was dealt into hand #69,739,000,000! FORTUNATELY, the hand happened to land on my ONLY 200nl table running at the time (the rest were all 100nl) AND I had been there for a while now, meaning that I would indeed have plenty of VPP’s to multiply. FORTUNATELY, I was dealt POCKET KINGS!! DEM COWBOYS, KING KONG, KRISPY KREME, GORILLAS, BROKEBACK! Yes, it seemed as all of the stars had aligned and I called upon my PS Pro powers for a strong hold but alas, they could not hold in dramatic riverstars fashion.

Poker Stars $200.00 No Limit Hold’em- 7 players

Hero (MP): $200.00
CO: $178.10
BTN: $95.40
SB: $80.00
BB: $206.00
UTG: $200.00
UTG+1: $375.80

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is MP with K K
UTG raises to $200, UTG+1 raises to $375.80, Hero calls $200 all in, CO calls $178.10 all in, BTN calls $95.40 all in, SB calls $79 all in, 1 fold

Flop: ($955.50) 2 7 9 (6 players – 4 are all in)

Turn: ($955.50) 6 (6 players – 4 are all in)

River: ($955.50) 4 (6 players – 4 are all in)

Final Pot: $955.50
Hero shows K K
CO shows 2 4
BTN shows A 5
SB shows 8 3
UTG shows Q T
UTG+1 shows 2 T
CO wins $479.00
(Rake: $3.00)

First of all, LOL @ 1 fold. Yes, everytime a milestone hand hits there is usually at least 1 clueless customer that has no idea what is happening despite the crystal clear instructions that are posted on the table by the Host. There is also about 3 minutes to read everything and let it sink it. Regardless, one table mate thought that his time would be better spent folding to grab a beer than winning thousands of dollars but hey, that helped my chances!

It was a tough beat but let’s face it, I don’t like my chances with any hand in a 6-way all-in pre. You won’t hear my complaining about it, as the hand still netted me a bonus of $1,104!

Man oh man, this month has just been BRUTAL. I actually feel like I’m playing some of the best poker ever and yet am having awful results. I kinda needed that milestone bonus hand to hold because even after the score, I’m still down about $1k for the month (again, pretty much nothing but the free online games have actually been pretty good so it’s frustrating). Maybe I’m just playing badly and not aware of it, as all of this heavy volume could be fogging my perception of reality but I mean I’ve been checking my losing hands after sessions and they all seem standard/bad beats. 5 biggest losing pots from last session:

1. This is against a villain that I initially thought was a fish (hence the 3bet pre with QQ for value) but later saw him on a bunch of tables so maybe he’s a reg or regfish. Beat.

Poker Stars $200.00 No Limit Hold’em- 8 players

UTG: $203.00
UTG+1: $246.00
MP1: $220.55
MP2: $60.35
CO: $155.20
BTN: $200.00
Hero (SB): $206.90
BB: $187.05

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is SB with Q Q
2 folds, MP1 raises to $4, 3 folds, Hero raises to $18, 1 fold, MP1 calls $14

Flop: ($38.00) Q T 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $26.00, MP1 raises to $202.55, Hero calls $162.90 all in

Turn: ($415.80) 2 (2 players – 1 is all in)

River: ($415.80) A (2 players – 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $415.80
MP1 shows A A
Hero shows Q Q
MP1 wins $399.15
(Rake: $3.00)

2. UTG is a fish, I figure that after he raises me on the flop he probably limped with AA or KK…instead of pot controlling it I figured that I would 3bet and possibly have some fold equity or just take my 55% equity as the favorite. Beat.

Poker Stars $200.00 No Limit Hold’em – 8 players

UTG+1: $200.25
MP1: $200.00
MP2: $97.00
CO: $214.55
BTN: $200.00
Hero (SB): $200.00
BB: $206.00
UTG: $103.65

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is SB with 8 K
UTG calls $2, 5 folds, Hero calls $1, BB checks

Flop: ($6.00) 9 6 7 (3 players)
Hero bets $6.00, BB folds, UTG raises to $14, Hero raises to $45, UTG raises to $101.65, Hero calls $56.65

Turn: ($209.30) J (2 players)

River: ($209.30) 6 (2 players)

Final Pot: $209.30
Hero shows 8 K
UTG shows A A
UTG wins $206.30
(Rake: $3.00)

3. Seems super standard against a reg with a high 3bet and squeeze %. Cooler.

Poker Stars $100.00 No Limit Hold’em- 9 players

UTG+1: $106.85
UTG+2: $111.70
MP1: $97.35
MP2: $103.60
Hero (CO): $100.00
BTN: $94.50
SB: $137.45
BB: $100.00
UTG: $82.00

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with Q Q
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $1, 1 fold, MP1 calls $1, MP2 calls $1, Hero raises to $6, 1 fold, SB raises to $19, 4 folds, Hero raises to $100, SB calls $81

Flop: ($204.00) 2 7 K (2 players)

Turn: ($204.00) 6 (2 players)

River: ($204.00) 2 (2 players)

Final Pot: $204.00
Hero shows Q Q
SB shows A K
SB wins $201.00
(Rake: $3.00)

4. This one could have probably been avoided. First, I hate my open pre. After that though, I think it’s not too bad…the river seems like an obvious fold because some nits just won’t ever bluff this spot but at the time I thought for sure the villain would bet this river with a flush. With that read, I thought that he was more likely just spazzing out trying to rep a flush that made no sense. Nits gunna nit though. SPEWY.

Poker Stars $200.00 No Limit Hold’em – 7 players

CO: $178.55
BTN: $288.45
SB: $164.40
BB: $223.70
UTG: $225.40
UTG+1: $200.00
Hero (MP): $258.70

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is MP with 8 9
2 folds, Hero raises to $6, CO calls $6, 1 fold, SB calls $5, 1 fold

Flop: ($20.00) 9 2 3 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $12.00, CO folds, SB calls $12

Turn: ($44.00) T (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($44.00) 8 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $25.00, SB raises to $78, Hero calls $53

Final Pot: $200.00
SB shows A 5
Hero mucks 8 9
SB wins $198.00
(Rake: $2.00)

5. This particular villain was a spewy fish, he had just lost half his stack the previous hand in spewtastic fashion. When he min-raises me on the flop I am licking my chops rather than looking for a pot-controllish line because the min-raise=the nuts. I chose to flat to induce more bluffs and snapped him off on the river. My read may have been way off but regardless folding at any point here would be pretty atrocious. Cooler.

Poker Stars $200.00 No Limit Hold’em – 9 players

SB: $90.00
BB: $200.00
UTG: $95.30
UTG+1: $270.20
UTG+2: $300.00
MP1: $205.15
MP2: $458.15
CO: $200.00
Hero (BTN): $427.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BTN with A A
UTG calls $2, 5 folds, Hero raises to $8, 2 folds, UTG calls $6

Flop: ($19.00) 3 6 Q (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $12.00, UTG raises to $24, Hero calls $12

Turn: ($67.00) 7 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

River: ($67.00) 8 (2 players)
UTG bets $63.30, Hero calls $63.30

Final Pot: $193.60
UTG shows 6 6
Hero shows A A
UTG wins $190.60
(Rake: $3.00)

So yeah, I mean I feel like I’m playing well so hopefully things can turn around for me over the next few days. I’ll be playing a ton so we’ll see.

I’d like to write up about the two Halloween parties that I attended this year because both were a ton of fun but it’s 3am right now and all I wanna do is sleep…so I’m off to hit the hay. I’ll try and write something up when I get some more free time.

Gl at the tables!

Desktops back so im back to my better set up.   Played a 5 hour non stop session as soon as it arrived but was to no joy losing a few hundred in the end.  Amazing pattern this month, every time i get near clearing a £400 bonus i lose £300-£400 in the last 10% of clearing it.  Ive done this every time on maybe 4 or 5 bonuses Annoying thing about today is i was looking forward to chucking