Huge post coming up. Make sure the boss is out before getting engrossed :)

Should prolly say here that i just proof read this and ended up sticking in little editors notes all over the place for fun. I seriously think im half mad, im referring to myself in the third person wtf?.

Ok iv been letting this blog slip lately and not posting as regularly as i would like. I wish it could be for the same reasons Julian Thew regulates his blogging, i.e blog a lot when ur running ok then stop when you win bundles hehe. But no its mainly been because i am getting lazier and lazier in my life. The comment from Snoopy and a pm from a blondite spurned me to getting this thing back on track. Who gives a monkeys if amatay already has like a hundred thousand hits and ukgatsby half a mil and im lingering on 30k :). I guess if i invent my own language and incorporate words like drunkay into my language. That'll hook the readers hehe. No seriously i will try and increase output and put a bit more out there, hopefully ill find it as therapeutic (sp?) as i did a few years ago.

Ill divulge the boring life stuff first, that way the prospect of the poker stuff at the end will ensure you read the lot. Iv been a busy little bunny of late.

House is going well, we had a bit of a gamble in the end and have tried to negotiate on the deal owing to the property bust. Risky as we both love the place but felt it was a good gamble. TBH Not a lot can really go wrong and these risk averse banks (we are dealing with a repossession) should jump at our chain free easy money tbh. Still fingers crossed, exchanging this week hopefully.

On holiday in a couple of weeks, be nice to get away for a bit of sunshine and lollipops with the inlaws. Gonna bring the fishing rod and do all the fun stuff i should do more of (like getting beered up all the time?!) and do some snorkelling, fishing, eating and swimming. I absolutely love holidays. Imagine my frustration when i found out this clashed with the PartyPoker cruise i was invited to attend :(
In the words of the great Mr.Ward "Marvellous".


The skypoker thing was cool, met up with Robby and that guy that gave Annette15 a run for her money in the wsope. Nice kid that Tabatabai. Also heard that the exec producer is interested in me trying out as an analyst for the show. Still waiting to hear more news but id jump at the chance to work with uncle Tikay and rookies missus Ling. The show itself is a complete doddle owing to the fact that its a quick donkament, where decisions are never really tricky. This should have made the commentary simple but me and the legend Romanello still managed to disagree on a couple of things. Still, when i read his insidepoker laydown in a cash game it made me cringe tbh (sorry mate, but it really did) (situation two, p48). The beauty of poker is that people disagree and thats why its wonderful, never forget that i always remind myself.

The insidepoker writing stuff is going well, i havent really pushed myself in terms of really putting out high level thinking (edit, who you kidding fish "high level thinking" lol) but iv had a lot of positive feedback which is nice, especially from the cash game players looking to improve. Going to be writing a lot more material for them in the near future and also for a new training site im helping to develop with a (very smart and immeasurably lucky) freind who has decided to dip his toe out there and invest. Hopefully ill improve as a player aswell as making a few quid.

Ok the poker. LOL. Erm, been playing a lot of 1/2 of late and only playing 2/4, 3/6 on weekends when i find a seriously dirrrrtaaay table (just for you amatay ;) Been spewing all over the place lately tbh, but im playing well. Lost a couple of monster @ 3/6 on the weekend that i could have played differently, but i always like to make the play that will make the most money in the longterm, not the short. The 1/2 tables have got ludicrously soft of late also, with France seemingly just having woken up from a slumber re. poker. How many French poker players does it take to play a hand of poker well? I wouldnt have a clue, iv yet to see a single decent hand be played by a frenchie all week. Interestingly they always fill out their location which i find unusual. Other nations generally leave the field blank, odd. Other fun stuff is i have started getting involved in some ludicrous spots against the regs i respect. Namely FishBuster and Hierkommtamaus. Hier wanted to play me hu on 4 tables of 400nl and i had to refuse. He is simple on another level when it comes to running good atm.

Live poker lol. I have been occasionally playing at Luton lately but i find it boring and sadly unattractive of late. Lots of the familiar faces dont turn up on the nights when they used to (Wednesday was cracking last year) and im playing quite terribly. Im so used to playing with proper stacks and decent structures that i simply cannot be arsed with a comp unless i have doubled up early on. Id much rather get involved in cash, which imo is where the reliable money is to be found (unless ur a certain chris moorman, who has been simply on fire this year, congrats). Now that im maturing (lol @ you maturing) i recognise the need for sustainable reliable imcome, which lately has seen me playing short and sweet sessions and then stopping. Its a gradual process, i still am pretty much addicted to poker and love a huge sesh, but profitablilty wise its -EV for me to sit for longer than 2 hours. Take last night. I player for a grand total of 50 minutes, made $1100 and stopped. Obv thats nto an everyday thing, but its becoming more and more regular. The problem is when i keep playing, then stagnate and play badly. Doing shit like 3betting 89soooted oop pre versus a 16/12. Or cold calling a 3b otb with A5s (incidentally this is my favourite hand in the whole wide world agaisnt nits, sooo many semibluff lines to take). These are leaks which i should plug. And playing poker for a long period of time is a huge leak for me.

Ok the fun stuff. After a bit of work and some egging on i decided to win another seat o GUKPT manchester. I had already won one but decided to cash it out as i had a very lean March. Played the 100r on Friday and took 5th for 1700 when the top 4 got seats. Bah, rigged. So tried again on Sunday in the last chance saloon. After playing like a demon earlier on i walked into ppl restealing v me with zero fold equity about 4 times an haemorraeged (definite sp there) my stack playing like a kipper. Down to final and i haaaaate playing longhanded so much i just turned on the telly. Once a few got out the way i won a QQ v AK flip and then it was a case of lets gogoogogogo. I knocked out some guy b4 losing a huge chunk with QQ v KK. 5 handed i played a hand that was either genius of plain dumb depending on your vantage point (hint, my opponent thought i was high), but i felt someone had to get this table moving, i was tired ffs!

I raise utg with Q9s 5 handed and a 21k stack to 2800 @ 600/1200. Mainly because utg raises had been getting a lot of respect and as we were all even players were playing super tight. The last thing i want in these things is some JJ v AK donkaexit where we flip a coin for a seat. The BB defends with a stack of 24k. Flop J34 rainbow and he check minraises my 2.5k bet to 5k. I opt to jam and he calls with AJ, i spike Q and then get the treatment in the chatbox. Seriously, AJ is like at the pinnacle of his range (he was an abc non-tricky TAG) as he cannot have an overpair. He might well be doing this with 55-1010 (fuck knows why, but TAGfish do odd things) and he should be able to fold all but KJ/AJ was my thoughts. Add to the fact i have such a sexy stack to jam with (remember its a satellite bubble) and i thought it was correct. Let me know what you think.


So i got the seat, was originally supposed to be staying with the Clamfish aka Rick Trigg but he's sacked me and im off to Manc on my tod. However will i cope with those northern monkeys on my own? I know, by winning the whole caboosh with exquisite poker! Wish me luck, playing Friday, updates on blondepoker. Would be nice to finally run goood in a live donkfest.

Long time no post, apologies to my faithful few. Erm, havent been posting much as iv been working very hard on mt game tbh. Was contacted a little while ago by one of the ipoker smallstakes regs who had noticed my stats had changed massively over a 6week period. Fuck me i had turned into the ubernit. Really really bad of me as i was 16-tabling a lot and giving up masses of equity. Funny enough it coincided with a huge downswing, wonder why...

So, decided to practice what i preach and have really gone for it lately, with reasonable results. Table selection and cutting back to 5 tables MAX has helped. I really want to be playing bigger games over the next few years (not townsend stakes lol), but being happy @ 5kNL by 2010 would be fantastic. And im pretty sure robotic multitabling was not the answer for long-term improvement, i mean sure you make good money when the games are sweet, but the rest of the time you suffer. So iv kicked myself out of that rut and feel good again.

Also, many congrats to Jim Mcshane for tying the not in Vegas, wp mate, this should hopefully ensure you keep your place till i come knocking on the door asking for somewhere to stay ;).


Random one here, just started the hertfordshire rat and rabbit society. Basically a load of us travel round the country giving farmers a helping hand sorting out rat problems. Sounds odd? This is how things work in the countryside. Seriously good fun. Mainly reason iv been going lately is my mates little Border Terrier who absolutely loves ratting. I mean she goes nuts when she sees my car pull up as she knows whats happening. Went to Reading on Monday to have a jolly up, about 8 of us smoked out all the rat burrows. Lots of rats, i mean thousands of the filthy little buggers but the owner has a poulty farm so poison is useless. for those that are interested poultry feed is what the rats eat, which is rich in Maize (sweetcorn) which contains high levels of vitamin K. This vitamin in high doses gives the rats unnatural resistance to all but the most lethal rat poisons (which are too dangerous to use on a working farm). thats where we come in. Armed with bats, a length of tubing and an old motorcycle, aswell as an army of keen terriers, we give the resident population a healthy dent. "Molly" was in her element. She got involved in two fights on Monday night. One with the resident Jack russel whos a vicious bloody thing and had to be kicked a few times to stop him nailing her and another with the biggest rat i have ever seen. She's not quite strong enough to give them the quick flick which snaps the next and this bugger got a hold of her pretty bad as she was shaking it. A couple of cuts, but she loves it to bits! A long way to go for fun, but a great crack. Ok, back to poker.

OK, springfest kicks off tonight @ Luton and will be a cracking little series of comps. Im playing the £150 and £500 event, only playing the ME if i can win the £ or get put in as im reasonably sure there will be no value whatsoever unless the field tips 60 and we manage to persuade Albert Sapiano turn up :)

On thursday im on the TV hehe. Basically, they ideally wanted Praz Bansi and Karl Mahrenholz but they were busy so they asked second rate poker players to take their place :) Cheer Jamie for thinking of me when they said "is there anyone else you know, i mean, absolutely anyone....(hehe)" Me and legend roberto Romanello on Skypoker @ 9pm and should be a good crack. We always have a good bit of banter but usually with large volumes of alcohol involved. Havent seen much daylight in about 3 weeks so hopefully they have a decent makeup artist on scene. EDIT (grandad Tikay is hosting, so they should have someone for the old boy).

See ya later!


p.s some great videos on tillerman.net and a funny hand on Fbadgers site, have a look.