Number 2 on my list of things which make me happy is not actually mum jokes (although they do). I just felt this title was more attention grabbing than my original choice of "random acts from people which seem totally out of character and are surprising/funny". Example would be a priest delivering said mum joke while your in confession. This hasn't actually happened to me before I assume this is primarily because I have never been to confession, if I did I imagine it would go something like this:

Charlie: Forgive me father for I have sinned
Priest: I sinned with your mum last night
Charlie: Have you lost control?
Priest: Your mum lost control last night I have the bite marks to prove it
Charlie: Your Crazy
Priest: Your mum did some crazy shit last night that thing with the pineapple OH MY GOD!


I remember a few years ago when I was still at University in our final year we were sent to a big manner house in the middle of nowhere which the Uni owned to listen to talks bond as a group (well done guys in making this in the final year not the first!) and do presentations. The manner house was given to the Uni by three teetotal sisters in their will with the only stipulation that no alcohol could be sold on site. As the place is not just used for students but for coporate team bonding events seminars etc having no bar on site would be a big downer on business so the Uni got around this rule by creating a bar in the basement.

On our final night at the place we all headed down to the bar and were getting nicely drunk until the bar closed abruptely at 11 oclock. Being the party animals we were we stayed down in the bar area and noticed that those lucky enough to be born with the gift of long arms could reach through the railings and dispense themselves a pint. No self respecting student could been seen in public again if they didn't take advantage of this situation so we proceeded to drink the place dry. About half an hour into the party I was near the front just about to get my self another free pint when one of the lecturers walked in and there was this sudden big silence, music stoped (if there was any it would of) people stopped talking and laughing like fuck we r deep trouble. Then he went up to the railings handed me his glass and was like "could you pour me a pint please as my arms are not very long and I can't reach" music instantly goes on again lauging and partying continues, EPIC!

I'm back after over a year without posting, so much for my first blog post about posting every day. Reading through my huge array of blog entries I made last year I notice a underlining theme of moaning so I'm going to start this year with something abit different. For each of the next 5 days I will write about something which makes me happy and why not start with fat people!

Ok so I don't mean having sex with fat people I imagine this would only result in making me more unhappy and cause my body to become sleightly denser. What I'm talking about is fat people eating fatty food food in public. There is something so beautiful about a 30 stone whale sitting in Mcdonalds with 5 Big Macs in front of it scoffing them all down which makes me somehow feel much better about my own life. I think to myself wow your fat because of your own actions not as a result of genetics or due to health problems but because your eating 50000 calories per day and doing no exercise.

I remember watching a program on "the 80 stone man" ages ago. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone who wants to watch it but basically there was an 80 stone man who had to be lifted by a winch used for moving whales (seriously no joke) out of his bedroom window to hospital. In hospital with regulated calorie intake they managed to get him down to 50 ish stone so barely skin and bones at which point he left hospital. Later on they were interviewing his wife and asking her if he had a special low calory diet now and she was like no not really as she spooned out 4 eggs for his breakfast!

I'm not sure where I'm even going with all this but fat people as long as your NOT walking around in anne summers underwear or lying on top of me you make me happy!

I'm going to come out with a bold statement and say the 2 are not actually related..........in other news I'm actually winning at poker again up 11k so far this month, not bad for 2 and a bit days.

So as an online poker player I spend a lot of time time in front of my computer playing poker (da!), but being a someone who gets bored easy/can't keep focus for hours on end I tend to play for like an hour or 2 then take a break for an hour to destress etc. On these breaks its hard for me to go out and do stuff because I'm basically on a work break and I want to be playing poker again within an hour so I spend the time watching every tv series under the sun (watching through buffy at the moment, best series ever!).

Anyway I don't consider this very constructive use of my downtime and I always thought it would be great if I turned up at a party and there was a piano and I could play 1 song amazingly, and all the blokes would be like who is that dude I respect that he can play the piano so well, and all the girls would be like wow Charlie could you give me private lessons back at your place (pretty sure I could poker face the lie for a bit, at least until I could find no more excuses not to play a second song and they had all worked out it was still actually the first song). So I have gone out and bought a keyboard complete with lighting up keys and everything (read the reviews for it on line and people were like I bought this for my 3year old daughter and she finds it easy to play so it should be perfect for me).

Progress has been good and shouldn't be long for my grand pian ( I tried) to come into play but it did get me thinking that besides from the wooing girls bit it is strange how I view it as more constructive than watching tv. Both have no use for more survival in the world and both produce the same amount of happiness but I'm pretty sure if you ask anyone which is more constructive they will say learning a new talent even if its useless in life. I'm still going to pretend its more constructive as that will probably make the happyness EV of playing it a tiny bit more than watching tv.


So I'm going to try and write alittle bit of PLO strategy in every post and I'm going to start with a little bet size trick (I will move onto pot bets in the next episode as they are the most miss used strategy in PLO imo).

This will work when:

-Your against a player who probably understands pot odds a little but doesn't think a street ahead of his current action
-Your against a new player/someone who doesn't read anything into you betting different amounts
-Your against a player who can actually fold medium strength hands
-Stack sizes allow you to just about be all in on the river with decent bet sizes

Simply put if your planning a 3 street bluff or a 2 street bluff (turn and river) vs this type of player it is better to bet less on the turn and more on the river (as opposed to a balanced strategy where you would try and make the turn and river bet sizes roughly the same relative to the pot as long as you could get all the money in).

The theory is this; if you bet the flop they call, you decide they probably have like a weak 2 pair hand and your going to 3barrel them, if you bet big on the turn and they call then often you have maybe a half size pot bet left on the river so you shove the rest of your chips in and pray. Your fishy opponent not really thinking a few streets ahead is like fuck my hand isn't look that good now I must be beat, then he looks at the pot as is like well I'm getting 2/1 (probably doesn't say that because he is fish therefore not great at maths) so is more like well I have alot of money in this pot already and it doesn't seem that much more to call I guess I will shut my eyes and hope for the best and he calls and you cry and break your keyboard (just me??).

If you bet smaller on the turn it leaves you with a nearer pot size bet on the river then when he gets to the river he sees you betting big and decides his medium strength hand cannot be good and folds. Doesn't always work and I have no actual large statistical sample to prove it works at all but it costs the same amount in terms of chips and should get a decent % more folds and poker is all about pushing small edges, increasing your edge when ever possible.

Exaggerated variance paid charity workers and the price of beer!

So I will get on to exaggerated variance in abit but first I am going to moan about life and this will be the structure of my blog posts from now until I start winning again (*this will be the structure of my blog POST - as I have found which I noticed when reading other peoples poker blogs when your losing you can't be arsed to do much especially write about poker). I am moaning about stuff because I am on the biggest downswing of my life - well over 100k and over 70k in equity!- according to pokerev. When I'm on a downswing I seem to just mope about hating everything so here goes some hating:

Paid charity workers - few weeks ago I was in Swansea city centre and I got stopped by someone trying to get money for the British red cross being an upstanding citizen of this fine country I stopped and gave him some of my -$4000 or whatever it is an hour these days time (prob should of given him like £200 for the time I spent not losing money at poker) neways....he talked I listened and eventually he stated that he was not a charity worker for red cross but he worked for another company employed by red cross to go and get peoples bank details. He gave some babble about every £10 red cross spend on this company they get £30 worth of donations or whatever it was...I understand the concept and it kinda makes sense, except it doesn't really in reality for the person on the street. He was a student so he had a student load etc so he didn't really "need" the money so he is there on the street trying to sell the idea of me giving money to this great charity yet if its such a great cause why isn't he just doing it for free instead of taking a wage (obviously his argument would be he wouldn't be there if wasn't for money or something but you get my point). So cutting the story short he argument broke down and he didn't get any of my remaining money alas the starving people in Africa will have to get it off whoever has been winning it off me (for what its worth I wouldn't of given to British red cross anyway there are far better better causes to give your money to).

Phew! That was a long one.....


Jobless yobs - haven't really spent much time thinking about them until this morning when I was walking past the job centre (they are forced to go there or don't get their free sitting at home watching tv money). But anyway was a big group of them outside and talk about living up to stereotypes. They all had shaved heads baseball caps and sports cloths with socks over their trousers earring in one ear etc shouting abuse at people going down the street. Not that I pay taxes so I don't actually pay their doll money directly but I do indirectly as I take alot of money from outside the country and spend it on stuff in the country to I help the economy but I was thinking should people like this be allowed to get away with blatantly liking leaching off society. People will spiel some bull about how they had tough upbringings everyone wasn't as lucky as me to get education etc etc morals, half a brain wah wah but you have got to wonder if they were forced to go out and get jobs and work if they would become better humans (does that some hypercritical as I just sit around watching tv and playing poker??).

Price of beer - hmm don't actually have a problem with this one just sounded cool in the title, spose it could be free but then I guess would mean pubs would be full of drunk jobless yobs bad bad idea.


Ok finally a proper subject. While in this downswing I have been thinking alot about variance and someone has probably already wrote about this idea already but I'm going to pretend I am the first and I shall coin it "exaggerated variance". It especially applies to playing heads up poker just because it will affect both players at same time in opposite ways but it will also come about in all poker. I think that variance is increased because pretty much every poker player will be playing better when they are winning and worse when they are losing. When your winning for instance you have a medium strength hand and your opponent has raised you on the river and you piece it all together and work out he probably has to have a better hand and so you fold thinking ah well I'm winning next hand please. When your losing you get raised and your like FUCK YOU WORLD how the fuck can this wanker have a hand every single time he must be making a play I call. And maybe your right sometimes but you know when you make the call deep down that its not going to be profitable long run so losing runs are bigger than just pure "luck" variance and winning runs are bigger than just running well (as your opponent will be feeling the other end of it).

So I have just come from play like 3hours of 75/150 omaha/8 over 3 tables or so, the games drifted in and out of fullring and shorthanded and stevesbets was at all my tables for the entire session.

This is not the first time I have played with him infact over the last few months I have put in a decent amount of hands vs him in both PLO and O/8 ranging from playing heads up to fullring and he fascinates me. It boggles me how someone who is clearly an intelligent human and can beat 5k hu nl holdem sngs can be so bad at every other form of poker.

Some of the stuff he does is just crazy bad and I don't really understand it. I assume the same part of the brain used to play 2 card games doesn't suddenly change when you have a few more cards (this is assuming he is good at nl cash of which I cannot judge). Sure I am better at some games than others but I believe that is only because I have spent more time on them but then maybe some people just manage to win in NL games from pure aggression but this obviously doesn't work as well in limit games.

So last night I was thinking alot about poker players and money and how when you start playing poker money stops having the same meaning it does when you work a "proper" job.

When I play poker there is always a link between my happiness and how well I'm doing it poker (and any poker player who says that they can completely separate the two is either delusional or a robot). For instance if I play well and win 10k I am happy yet if I play just as well as lose 10k I am unhappy. Why is this? The results should be irrelevant but they aren't. The same goes for my bankroll, I feel the higher it is the happier I am yet it doesn't change the way I live outside poker one bit. For instance in June last year I had my first big breakthrough month where I won $40k at 5/10. The next month I totally lost my tilt control and lost around-$80k and spent the next few months in a bad place mentally. My lifestyle however did not change one bit I still went out when I wanted and bought what I wanted, granted sometimes when I was out at a club I would think twice before buying another round of drinks then still do it anyway.

The point I'm trying to make if any?? is that there is this link between poker players and money and I don't think you can ever fully separate them. I think alot of this has to do with how strange poker is as a way to make a living. Most people go to work 9-5 and do something constructive like say making a chair if your a carpenter then you come home at night content that you have made the best chair ever and it will keep someones bottom happy for many years.

Poker players just move money around you don't actually have anything to show for it at the end of the day apart from the money you have won or lost so its true when you hear poker players say that the money doesn't really matter its just a way of keeping score.

So being the biggest procrastinator in the world I tend to spend months thinking about doing stuff I want to do yet I never get round to it. For instance I have been thinking about booking my driving test for maybe the last 12 months...the other day I got as far as thinking I would actually do it on that day, and I believed it I would but it just never happened.

Writing a blog is another thing I have been saying to myself I should do since I started playing poker professionally almost exactly a year ago and today I am finally going to succeed (with one entry atleast). This drastic decision to actually go through with something is partially due to the fact I have just come off the back of losing 40k in about 2hours of play and I'm looking to pent out some frustration.

So this blog is here primarily to help me get some of my thoughts down on paper to stop them swirling round my head (kinda like dumbledores pensieve), and to keep a better record of each day I play poker so that I can look back and improve on my mistakes but at the same time I hope I can provide some insight into what its like to leave University without a degree to take up poker fulltime. I am also not aware of many high stakes players from the UK that actually blog regurlary. I do not plan on using the blog to post many actual hands or results or bad beat stories (although I will probably moan if I am losing) but more to write about concepts etc.....

So in brief poker background..I started playing hu limit sngs a few years ago at the $5 level, then I moved to 6 and 9man sngs where I would make decent money only to lose it all in cash games over and over again. I eventually started winning in holdem cash games and found omaha and started losing all the money I made in holdem in omaha...until I finally started winning in that to....I may give a better desciption in a later blog entry.

At the moment I mainly play 10/20plo and 75/150 100/200 hilo heads up/shorthanded being my main game if I can get action.