This summer there was a tennis match between Nikolay Davydenko ranked No. 4 in the world and No. 87 Martin Vassallo Arguello. Before the match was off there was a whisper that Davydenko would withdraw injured. However he still went off as 1.20 favourite which means basically for every £1 you bet you will get 20p profit if he wins. He won the first set and usually in a tennis match the price would get even shorter to probably around 1.10 or less, however his price drifted to 4.30 meaning for every pound you invested you would now get £3,30 profit. This was clearly a set up and it was no surprise when he lost the second set and retired injured in the third giving the match to Arguello.
Now I am surprised at how it could be so blantant, I presume simply one too many people opened their mouths on the inside and quite possible one or two people are now in a bodybag somewhere having been shot by the russian mafia.
The case of bad addiction is somebody I told take a look at this rigged game. Davyenko is ahead but will soon withdraw injured, what does the person do? Backs Davyenko as he is such a good price! I asked him if he was mad, he deposited every penny of his poker bankroll onto Davyenko. Then he had an absolute miracle, Betfair due to so many complaints cancelled all bets on the match and he was refunded the money! What a bad case of addiction! Anyone wanting more information on the betting scam can simply google a few words such as Davyenko, cheat, corruption. Here is one link which pretty much explains in a nutshell what happened...
http://www.covers.co.uk/articles/articles.aspx?theArt=146086
People remember, if a bet is a losing bet it does not matter if you are getting a million to one! A losing betting slip for a £10 stake is worth the same as a losing betting slip for a £10000 stake......sweet f.a.! If something appears to be too good to be true it usually is!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Million dollar challenge + bonus feature!!
Ok this is it, I have not played much poker this month and have spent some time teaching some beginners how to play. The problem is everytime I am not around they play higher stakes and lose. They say it is not much money and i have to keep explaining it is not about the money but why play at a level you cannot beat. Before people think my challenge is to turn a novice into a winning player I shall say what it is as I don't have patience for that!
From October 1st I shall keep records of how much I make from poker. My definition of profit is whatever I withdraw at the end of the month as I never put money back into poker which has been taken out. I will see how long it takes me to win a million dollars, the added bonus challenge is trying to get a 6pak also and see which one if any I can achieve first! I really don't know which of the two will be harder as although I used to go to the gym five days a week that was years ago and I am fast approaching thirty years of age. Once you past thirty it really is hard to get into shape if you are not already. It is especially hard as playing lots of poker tends to make people lazy!
I am going to update once every month as of November and my million dollar challenge starts on 1st October however getting back into shape starts from today. Things that take motivation to start up are easier to start on the spur of the moment than a set date. My starting weight is 93kilos with a body fat of 21%. Healthy lifestyles are not promoted enough in the poker world and it genuinely looks like the more that someone wins the worse they looked after themselves.
Looking at things logically if you are 10 kilos over your ideal weight then that is another 10 kilos that your bones have to support every day of your life. If you don't lose excess weight it will lead to arthritis and need of joint replacement in older age. If I live a long life I want to spend my twilight years relaxing in the sun and not going into hospitals.
Also two added benefits are the fact that I have so many nice clothes that don't fit me anymore that will do soon enough and hopefully secondly I will be getting even more action with the ladies! There generally is no excuse but lazyness for being overweight. My weight is classed as average for my size but i feel society is continually stretching what the limit is for being healthy. In part due to the big food companies in America stuffing people and then filling them with false propoganda. I have a few stories on America and food to put up at a later date.
Off now until tomorrow when I shall ramble about something else, and to all fellow poker players remember it doesn't cost nothing to lose weight. Get smart, get healthy.
From October 1st I shall keep records of how much I make from poker. My definition of profit is whatever I withdraw at the end of the month as I never put money back into poker which has been taken out. I will see how long it takes me to win a million dollars, the added bonus challenge is trying to get a 6pak also and see which one if any I can achieve first! I really don't know which of the two will be harder as although I used to go to the gym five days a week that was years ago and I am fast approaching thirty years of age. Once you past thirty it really is hard to get into shape if you are not already. It is especially hard as playing lots of poker tends to make people lazy!
I am going to update once every month as of November and my million dollar challenge starts on 1st October however getting back into shape starts from today. Things that take motivation to start up are easier to start on the spur of the moment than a set date. My starting weight is 93kilos with a body fat of 21%. Healthy lifestyles are not promoted enough in the poker world and it genuinely looks like the more that someone wins the worse they looked after themselves.
Looking at things logically if you are 10 kilos over your ideal weight then that is another 10 kilos that your bones have to support every day of your life. If you don't lose excess weight it will lead to arthritis and need of joint replacement in older age. If I live a long life I want to spend my twilight years relaxing in the sun and not going into hospitals.
Also two added benefits are the fact that I have so many nice clothes that don't fit me anymore that will do soon enough and hopefully secondly I will be getting even more action with the ladies! There generally is no excuse but lazyness for being overweight. My weight is classed as average for my size but i feel society is continually stretching what the limit is for being healthy. In part due to the big food companies in America stuffing people and then filling them with false propoganda. I have a few stories on America and food to put up at a later date.
Off now until tomorrow when I shall ramble about something else, and to all fellow poker players remember it doesn't cost nothing to lose weight. Get smart, get healthy.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
pictures, pictures, pictures......
People are emailing me requesting more pictures but I don't really have the time to find them online. However today I shall put up a few pictures of some absolute stunning women (a few of whom I am fortunate enough to know!) all who have links to the world of poker! Enjoy >>>>>
Liz Lieu
Tara
Kirsty
JennicideWednesday, September 26, 2007
Twenty/twenty......a tale of two twenties!
Those expecting a cricket/optical related tale may be disappointed! This is a tale of two twenty pound notes! On a frequent drunken night (no more drunk nights, honest!), several months ago in London I spent quite a bit of money. Forty pounds of which was distributed as follows....
First off I was near the bar and some girl had been sick on the floor near where I was standing. One of the bar backs (glass collector/barman's gopher) came and cleaned the mess up, out of all the staff in a club these guys must get less than everyone else and are probably the only people who don't get any tips. He quietly and efficiently cleared up the girls mess and didn't even complain to anyone. When noone was looking I slipped him £20 (just in case if anyone saw he may have to share it and he done all the work). He was over the moon and couldn't thank me enough.
A few weeks ago I was at the same club and went to get a drink, what do you know.....the bar back has now been promoted to a barman! He said hello and many of my drinks that night were on the house! The £20 has already saved me over £50 and also the service I get at the bar couldn't be faster! Maybe in the future I will even get more drinks on the house, definitely one of the best £20 I have ever spent.
Now for the tale of the other £20 which hasn't been so well spent.....for now!
As many people will already know many of my friends and family work in central London/ London's west end. From around the age of 16 I have spent a lot of time there, from bar workers to shop owners to homeless people to chefs I know many people from all walks of life. Central London is harsh and people come and go, not many people last there for too long. However one of the people I have known since I was 16 is Paul Sebastian,(http://www.myspace.com/paulsebastianmusic)
he will have a few stories on me but hopefully he won't tell anyone who asks! From the young wild boy days through to the nights of pulling a few girls he knows a lot! He makes a few quid from his music which is pretty unique and his own creation. Other than clubs, music albums some nights he can be found playing in various parts of central London. London at night has a certain energy about it which is pretty undescribable, although I think as every few years passes the energy just gets lower.
So i have left the club around 3a.m. when I see Paul playing his music and i stop for a quick chat. Nearby is a homeless person (not too scruffy but clearly homeless) who is drinking a can of stella. Now its 3 a.m. most bars are shut and I fancy a beer, I decide to show some faith and trust in the guy and give him £20 to get me two beers from wherever he found that one from and inform him that he can keep the change. He says he can get me four, I say no two will be fine and keep the change. Apparently the shop is around ten minutes away and i say no problem. Paul says the guy is a bit slow in the head but is o.k. from the few years he has seen him hanging around. Me and Paul have a chat, before you know it forty minutes has passed and the guy hasn't come back! I mean what the fuck is that about? The guy stands to make £17 from getting just two beers at 3a.m. He probably didn't have a dollar in his pocket and £17 wasn't enough for him? Some people will say it was stupidity but I believe in giving everyone a chance in life. All that happens when someone lets you down is that your faith in humanity lessens and somebody else in the future isn't given a chance due to someone elses fuck up. The more positive things that happen in the world the better, when negative things happen the world becomes a worse place. It really is that simple yet so many people fail to grasp this that's why in my opinion as every day goes past the world becomes a worse place. Surely one day it will peak and we shall all live in Utopia?
So now failing a homeless person finding a winning lottery ticket then seeking me and buying me a lifetime supply of beer I feel that was £20 wasted!
First off I was near the bar and some girl had been sick on the floor near where I was standing. One of the bar backs (glass collector/barman's gopher) came and cleaned the mess up, out of all the staff in a club these guys must get less than everyone else and are probably the only people who don't get any tips. He quietly and efficiently cleared up the girls mess and didn't even complain to anyone. When noone was looking I slipped him £20 (just in case if anyone saw he may have to share it and he done all the work). He was over the moon and couldn't thank me enough.
A few weeks ago I was at the same club and went to get a drink, what do you know.....the bar back has now been promoted to a barman! He said hello and many of my drinks that night were on the house! The £20 has already saved me over £50 and also the service I get at the bar couldn't be faster! Maybe in the future I will even get more drinks on the house, definitely one of the best £20 I have ever spent.
Now for the tale of the other £20 which hasn't been so well spent.....for now!
As many people will already know many of my friends and family work in central London/ London's west end. From around the age of 16 I have spent a lot of time there, from bar workers to shop owners to homeless people to chefs I know many people from all walks of life. Central London is harsh and people come and go, not many people last there for too long. However one of the people I have known since I was 16 is Paul Sebastian,(http://www.myspace.com/paulsebastianmusic)
he will have a few stories on me but hopefully he won't tell anyone who asks! From the young wild boy days through to the nights of pulling a few girls he knows a lot! He makes a few quid from his music which is pretty unique and his own creation. Other than clubs, music albums some nights he can be found playing in various parts of central London. London at night has a certain energy about it which is pretty undescribable, although I think as every few years passes the energy just gets lower.
So i have left the club around 3a.m. when I see Paul playing his music and i stop for a quick chat. Nearby is a homeless person (not too scruffy but clearly homeless) who is drinking a can of stella. Now its 3 a.m. most bars are shut and I fancy a beer, I decide to show some faith and trust in the guy and give him £20 to get me two beers from wherever he found that one from and inform him that he can keep the change. He says he can get me four, I say no two will be fine and keep the change. Apparently the shop is around ten minutes away and i say no problem. Paul says the guy is a bit slow in the head but is o.k. from the few years he has seen him hanging around. Me and Paul have a chat, before you know it forty minutes has passed and the guy hasn't come back! I mean what the fuck is that about? The guy stands to make £17 from getting just two beers at 3a.m. He probably didn't have a dollar in his pocket and £17 wasn't enough for him? Some people will say it was stupidity but I believe in giving everyone a chance in life. All that happens when someone lets you down is that your faith in humanity lessens and somebody else in the future isn't given a chance due to someone elses fuck up. The more positive things that happen in the world the better, when negative things happen the world becomes a worse place. It really is that simple yet so many people fail to grasp this that's why in my opinion as every day goes past the world becomes a worse place. Surely one day it will peak and we shall all live in Utopia?
So now failing a homeless person finding a winning lottery ticket then seeking me and buying me a lifetime supply of beer I feel that was £20 wasted!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Hit & Run
For most people a 'hit and run' is a car accident where a driver hits a car/person and drives off, for a poker player it is somebody who wins 'hits' against them then leaves the table before they get a chance to win it back.
Now I have a new kind of meaning for hit and run by a poker player. During this years trip to Las Vegas I heard a story of a guy who was having a drink at a bar when one of the 'Vegas girls' approached him (hookers). She drove him back to his hotel in a brand new sports BMW and then went up to his room. Being quite cautious when she was in the bathroom the guy hid his wallet and valuables and took out the $300 that the girl agreed upon and left it on the side. She left the bathroom and he went inside, when he came out one minute later the girl had gone and so had the $300! So he got fucked alright, what a hit and run!
From stories you hear being a prostitute is often a dangerous proffession, I am sure in Vegas it is a lot safer than most places. Beggars belief that the girl will take this kind of chance on cheating someone. What if she bumps into the guy again, is the $300 worth it?
I try to avoid Vegas girls as so much trouble can come attatched with them. I know that one guy from team Betfair was charged with rape in Las Vegas this year. He took a hooker back to his room and then saw blood was all over the place and guessed it must be that time of the month, he said I am going to clean up I want you gone by the time I am out of the bathroom. When he left the bathroom she was gone.....soon after the police were banging on his door and he was arrested!
Paul who works for Betfair dealing with V.I.P. customers was on the scene as soon as he heard. Considering the amount of people he has to look after he does a great job. He arrives to see half of a floor of the Wynn taped off with a police guard looking like something out of C.S.I. When he asks what is going on the policeman fails to assist and gives it MOVE BACK FROM THE SCENE SIR. Paul gets some more information from the hotel security and asks why the policeman is being such a wanker. The next morning the guy is released with no charge, the girl must have previous for doing the same thing? I believe she faced a criminal charge after that. On the way out of the police station the policeman asks the guy 'sir what is a wanker?, somebody called Paul called me one according to the hotel security'. The security had obviously told the police, luckily the wrongly accused was quickly aquitted.
I have also heard stories of people going to downtown strip clubs and getting robbed. Lots of people will not heed warning and can't resist temptation. To those who can't resist the temptations of some strong perfume, long hair and silicone in their face just be careful.
I said two days ago I was going to post some hands up that I think demonstrate great plays by players but I haven't found the clips yet. I have ten minute clips with the hands in but I want to shorten it down to just the specific hands.
Now I have a new kind of meaning for hit and run by a poker player. During this years trip to Las Vegas I heard a story of a guy who was having a drink at a bar when one of the 'Vegas girls' approached him (hookers). She drove him back to his hotel in a brand new sports BMW and then went up to his room. Being quite cautious when she was in the bathroom the guy hid his wallet and valuables and took out the $300 that the girl agreed upon and left it on the side. She left the bathroom and he went inside, when he came out one minute later the girl had gone and so had the $300! So he got fucked alright, what a hit and run!
From stories you hear being a prostitute is often a dangerous proffession, I am sure in Vegas it is a lot safer than most places. Beggars belief that the girl will take this kind of chance on cheating someone. What if she bumps into the guy again, is the $300 worth it?
I try to avoid Vegas girls as so much trouble can come attatched with them. I know that one guy from team Betfair was charged with rape in Las Vegas this year. He took a hooker back to his room and then saw blood was all over the place and guessed it must be that time of the month, he said I am going to clean up I want you gone by the time I am out of the bathroom. When he left the bathroom she was gone.....soon after the police were banging on his door and he was arrested!
Paul who works for Betfair dealing with V.I.P. customers was on the scene as soon as he heard. Considering the amount of people he has to look after he does a great job. He arrives to see half of a floor of the Wynn taped off with a police guard looking like something out of C.S.I. When he asks what is going on the policeman fails to assist and gives it MOVE BACK FROM THE SCENE SIR. Paul gets some more information from the hotel security and asks why the policeman is being such a wanker. The next morning the guy is released with no charge, the girl must have previous for doing the same thing? I believe she faced a criminal charge after that. On the way out of the police station the policeman asks the guy 'sir what is a wanker?, somebody called Paul called me one according to the hotel security'. The security had obviously told the police, luckily the wrongly accused was quickly aquitted.
I have also heard stories of people going to downtown strip clubs and getting robbed. Lots of people will not heed warning and can't resist temptation. To those who can't resist the temptations of some strong perfume, long hair and silicone in their face just be careful.
I said two days ago I was going to post some hands up that I think demonstrate great plays by players but I haven't found the clips yet. I have ten minute clips with the hands in but I want to shorten it down to just the specific hands.
Monday, September 24, 2007
My lucky number 14.....
As many people already know I let house games get the better of me during my 5 weeks of Vegas hell this year! One morning I was playing in Caesar's and was up around $3000 on blackjack. Then the dealer was changed and the new one was an absolute bitch, kept commenting on plays etc. Then after a hand busted she would start adding up cards on the next hand saying what woulda/coulda/shoulda happened. From $3000 up i went $3000 down and decided she was so annoying I had to leave before I done something she would regret. I moved to roullette and from the first $200 i cashed I ended up with around $5000 so overall I was up $2000 and i decided to call it a night.
I catch a cab back to The Wynn where I was staying courtesy of Betfair around 3 a.m. and decide I still fancy a drink or two. I was going to just grab a few drinks from the mini-bar which I had been hammering (some days to the tune of 2-$300 plus), then I have the great idea I know I will sit on a table and just mess around with $100 and get a few drinks for free. This is very unlike me as usually I would rather pay for something as I know very few things in life are truly free of charge. On the table I start speaking to an english couple who lived close to me in London. Both of them shared the 14th as their birthdays and were backing it amongst other numbers. Being told it was a lucky number and due to come in I put a few bets on it for fun. I am winning a little on other numbers but 14 hadn't come in when I realise the time is now 8 a.m. and I am actually a few thousand down! I stopped betting on everything else and stuck with just $25-50 a spin on 14. Soon after Deejay walked past on his way to a routine beer or six to calm his nerves before he played the world series main event!
He had a few bets and was up around $1000 and having heard how number 14 hadn't come in for five hours decided he to would catch the 14 bug. Soon after the pit boss informs me according to some new federal law there are limits to how much you can drop at a casino and still remain anonymous. I had already said no thanks to getting a player rating as i felt like the amounts I would win or lose meant I shouldn't be in need of free meals or shows. Now i refused to get rated so I wasn't allowed to play at the table! To get around this I simply gave deejay the money to put the bets on.
Just before 11 evo2 turns up and I think now he has caught the 14 bug it is sure to drop in! However it still doesn't. It is now time for deejay to go and play the tournament so having played the number for 8 hours and still not seeing it drop in I have to back down and show identification to continue my pursuit of 14! The time is now half past 12 and I have been chasing ONE number for 8.5 hours and it still hasn't come in! I have one $25 chip left and no money and I place it on number 14, the ball is going close and then it goes three past then as if in slow motion it changes direction and goes backwards slotting straight into number 14!
Mission accomplished for me. The outcome, I will never back number 14 again, the english guy was an oil trader so I am sure oil prices rose a cent the next day and deejay( David Wells )decided he would leave Vegas with some money and went on to come 85th out of over 6000 entrants to earn just over $82000.
The main event I feel was a success for English players with 4 finishing in the top 100. Funnily enough the four of them are all polite, genuinly nice people who you could only wish to do well in tournaments. The highest finisher from England was Jonathon Kalmar who came 5th and won over a million dollars, he had some bad luck and was unfortunate not to win many more millions.
I will probably skip the world series in 2008 due to it being such a distraction in general. I may go to Las Vegas though to watch a few boxing matches next year, time will tell. For all poker players who go to Las Vegas to play poker try to do just that, there are so many great tournaments daily and throughout the day that there really is no need to play games where its pot luck. If you bust out of a $200 tournament to a bad beat dont try and win the entry fee back on the house games, you may lose your shirt! Just tell yourself poker is not a sprint its a marathon. An entrance fee today that is lost will be paid for by a win in a tournament tomorrow.
I catch a cab back to The Wynn where I was staying courtesy of Betfair around 3 a.m. and decide I still fancy a drink or two. I was going to just grab a few drinks from the mini-bar which I had been hammering (some days to the tune of 2-$300 plus), then I have the great idea I know I will sit on a table and just mess around with $100 and get a few drinks for free. This is very unlike me as usually I would rather pay for something as I know very few things in life are truly free of charge. On the table I start speaking to an english couple who lived close to me in London. Both of them shared the 14th as their birthdays and were backing it amongst other numbers. Being told it was a lucky number and due to come in I put a few bets on it for fun. I am winning a little on other numbers but 14 hadn't come in when I realise the time is now 8 a.m. and I am actually a few thousand down! I stopped betting on everything else and stuck with just $25-50 a spin on 14. Soon after Deejay walked past on his way to a routine beer or six to calm his nerves before he played the world series main event!
He had a few bets and was up around $1000 and having heard how number 14 hadn't come in for five hours decided he to would catch the 14 bug. Soon after the pit boss informs me according to some new federal law there are limits to how much you can drop at a casino and still remain anonymous. I had already said no thanks to getting a player rating as i felt like the amounts I would win or lose meant I shouldn't be in need of free meals or shows. Now i refused to get rated so I wasn't allowed to play at the table! To get around this I simply gave deejay the money to put the bets on.
Just before 11 evo2 turns up and I think now he has caught the 14 bug it is sure to drop in! However it still doesn't. It is now time for deejay to go and play the tournament so having played the number for 8 hours and still not seeing it drop in I have to back down and show identification to continue my pursuit of 14! The time is now half past 12 and I have been chasing ONE number for 8.5 hours and it still hasn't come in! I have one $25 chip left and no money and I place it on number 14, the ball is going close and then it goes three past then as if in slow motion it changes direction and goes backwards slotting straight into number 14!
Mission accomplished for me. The outcome, I will never back number 14 again, the english guy was an oil trader so I am sure oil prices rose a cent the next day and deejay( David Wells )decided he would leave Vegas with some money and went on to come 85th out of over 6000 entrants to earn just over $82000.
The main event I feel was a success for English players with 4 finishing in the top 100. Funnily enough the four of them are all polite, genuinly nice people who you could only wish to do well in tournaments. The highest finisher from England was Jonathon Kalmar who came 5th and won over a million dollars, he had some bad luck and was unfortunate not to win many more millions.
I will probably skip the world series in 2008 due to it being such a distraction in general. I may go to Las Vegas though to watch a few boxing matches next year, time will tell. For all poker players who go to Las Vegas to play poker try to do just that, there are so many great tournaments daily and throughout the day that there really is no need to play games where its pot luck. If you bust out of a $200 tournament to a bad beat dont try and win the entry fee back on the house games, you may lose your shirt! Just tell yourself poker is not a sprint its a marathon. An entrance fee today that is lost will be paid for by a win in a tournament tomorrow.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Maniacs.....
So many people in this world are delluded. The relevence to poker is that so many people are useless and think that they are good and make it. The auditions for the X-Factor sum up a lot about society in general. Below is a link for a girl who seriously thinks she can be the next Madonna. She claims to have been an apprentice jockey, she would have had to put on 30 kilos in the last few years if it was really true. Who would let 13+ stone onto a thoroughbred?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnrelH-ToKg&mode=user&search=
There really are so many crazy people in this world, half of the people on X factor if translated to a poker equivalent would call all in on the river with 27 on a AKTJ8 board and be genuinelly shocked that their hand wouldn't be a winner. Not much of a post from me as I have just got home and need some sleep. Soon I will be putting up links for some of the greatest hands I have ever seen played on a poker table. www.youtube.com really is such a great site, one of the latest hands is played by Gus Hansen when everything is taken into context I believe he makes one of the all time greatest folds.
Have a good weekend everyone, I have an insight on tomorrows (todays!!) match between Chelsea and Manchester United. I will not post it here though as I don't want to encourage any addicts to gamble. When I first created this blog I was getting 100-200 unique visitors a day, I took the blog off for a few weeks and haven't told people I have put it 'back on air'. I wanted to see how long it would take for people to come back and view. I am currently on around only 60 unique views per day. I have set myself a target of at least 300 unique views per day or it really isn't worth posting. I have saved many great stories for when (if it does) picks up here. So if you think a few of the posts here are worth reading then please do check up frequently or the blog may be terminated. Bluescouse has an interesting blog as he is on a never-ending roller coaster and he gets 900 unique hits a day so I don't think 300 is out of the question. The next month or so will tell, good night;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnrelH-ToKg&mode=user&search=
There really are so many crazy people in this world, half of the people on X factor if translated to a poker equivalent would call all in on the river with 27 on a AKTJ8 board and be genuinelly shocked that their hand wouldn't be a winner. Not much of a post from me as I have just got home and need some sleep. Soon I will be putting up links for some of the greatest hands I have ever seen played on a poker table. www.youtube.com really is such a great site, one of the latest hands is played by Gus Hansen when everything is taken into context I believe he makes one of the all time greatest folds.
Have a good weekend everyone, I have an insight on tomorrows (todays!!) match between Chelsea and Manchester United. I will not post it here though as I don't want to encourage any addicts to gamble. When I first created this blog I was getting 100-200 unique visitors a day, I took the blog off for a few weeks and haven't told people I have put it 'back on air'. I wanted to see how long it would take for people to come back and view. I am currently on around only 60 unique views per day. I have set myself a target of at least 300 unique views per day or it really isn't worth posting. I have saved many great stories for when (if it does) picks up here. So if you think a few of the posts here are worth reading then please do check up frequently or the blog may be terminated. Bluescouse has an interesting blog as he is on a never-ending roller coaster and he gets 900 unique hits a day so I don't think 300 is out of the question. The next month or so will tell, good night;)
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Can you trust poker online?
This is not an April fools day joke (not surprising seeing as we are in September!) Many people use things such as poker tracker. I personally don't know how it works but I feel sites if possible shouldn't allow this software to be run. There is software that allows people to see your mucked hands EVEN if they are not playing on your table. I don't think its right that for example a player on $5/$10 nl can have a $1/$2 player track his play, he can see what hands someone plays, if they make continuation bets and get a whole load of other imformation WITHOUT sitting with the player. So a database is made on somebody for free then the person can play them with a huge edge. In live poker you could not get all this information on playing somebody unless you played them. Can you imagine ten years ago even thinking of software to tell you how your opponent plays? People would go on feel, reads etc. Not reads of a software program, I think its time for sites to ban all of this software. Even things like sharkscope I don't feel are beneficial for the game as a whole.
Now onto the most serious forms of abuse via poker software. As previously posted there is some kind of problem with software that shows opponents cards on Absolute Poker and a few high rollers have been fleeced for millions. Now this is the LATEST sting in the tail, the one plus point is Fulltiltpoker has acted unlike Absolute Poker who still deny there is a problem. Recently several players have recieved emails from FTP without ever complaining about a problem. Here are a couple of them:
Dear (PLAYER A)
Upon conclusion of a recent investigation of cash game play, we have determined that opponents of yours used unauthorized automated software while playing.
In this instance, we have seized the account balances of the offending players and redistributed it to players who were victimized. The calculation was based on the number of hands played against the offending players as well as the amount won or lost against them.
With this redistribution, we have determined that your are entitled to a refund of $231.93, which will be placed in your account in the next 4-6 hours.
For various reasons, we are unable to advise you of the names of the players or any other information regarding this case; we thank you for your understanding in this regard.
Here at Full Tilt Poker, we investigate every concern of suspicious activity at our tables. The vigilance of our players is one of the strongest weapons we have in our ongoing battle against illegal play. If you become suspicious of any behavior, chat, or action at our tables, please don't hesitate to contact us at http://by105fd.bay105.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/compose?curmbox=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&a=5ac20453e1cf015afcf814a6817f88077800ea1ffb05e7dc3f5e8391a105980c&mailto=1&to=support@fulltiltpoker.com&msg=520F630C-F1C8-444D-B0D1-76FB5C404815&start=0&len=3077&src=&type=x. We wish you best of luck at the tables, and if there's any other way we can be of assistance, please let us know. Sincerely, Full Tilt Poker
I have taken down the second email and noticed that the first player is currently still playing FTP so I shall try to confirm with him at some point in the next few days that the email is genuine. If he confirms this story which is from a poker forum I shall leave the story here, if he does not confirm I shall take the post down. Either way I think the integrity of online poker is affected by so many different forms of software to assist people to make money whether it be legal/illegal it is still immoral. Many people genuinely love the game and that is shown by the amount of seriously rich people who play poker for small stakes. A game where the best in the world and worst can compete on the same table, and the worst player can come out on top! What a great game we play, please don't support these software providers who are damaging the game.
+++++UPDATE+++++
Already several people emailed me, do not panic it is not the same con as on Absolute Poker. It appears that people were using pokerbots. Such credit given to fulltiltpoker for giving people money when they did not even realise that they had been cheated. For a better insight into this scam here is a link from the outstanding 2+2 forum...
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12165057&an=0&page=2#Post12165057
Also another link from another site....
http://www.totalpuff.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2604
Now onto the most serious forms of abuse via poker software. As previously posted there is some kind of problem with software that shows opponents cards on Absolute Poker and a few high rollers have been fleeced for millions. Now this is the LATEST sting in the tail, the one plus point is Fulltiltpoker has acted unlike Absolute Poker who still deny there is a problem. Recently several players have recieved emails from FTP without ever complaining about a problem. Here are a couple of them:
Dear (PLAYER A)
Upon conclusion of a recent investigation of cash game play, we have determined that opponents of yours used unauthorized automated software while playing.
In this instance, we have seized the account balances of the offending players and redistributed it to players who were victimized. The calculation was based on the number of hands played against the offending players as well as the amount won or lost against them.
With this redistribution, we have determined that your are entitled to a refund of $231.93, which will be placed in your account in the next 4-6 hours.
For various reasons, we are unable to advise you of the names of the players or any other information regarding this case; we thank you for your understanding in this regard.
Here at Full Tilt Poker, we investigate every concern of suspicious activity at our tables. The vigilance of our players is one of the strongest weapons we have in our ongoing battle against illegal play. If you become suspicious of any behavior, chat, or action at our tables, please don't hesitate to contact us at http://by105fd.bay105.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/compose?curmbox=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&a=5ac20453e1cf015afcf814a6817f88077800ea1ffb05e7dc3f5e8391a105980c&mailto=1&to=support@fulltiltpoker.com&msg=520F630C-F1C8-444D-B0D1-76FB5C404815&start=0&len=3077&src=&type=x. We wish you best of luck at the tables, and if there's any other way we can be of assistance, please let us know. Sincerely, Full Tilt Poker
I have taken down the second email and noticed that the first player is currently still playing FTP so I shall try to confirm with him at some point in the next few days that the email is genuine. If he confirms this story which is from a poker forum I shall leave the story here, if he does not confirm I shall take the post down. Either way I think the integrity of online poker is affected by so many different forms of software to assist people to make money whether it be legal/illegal it is still immoral. Many people genuinely love the game and that is shown by the amount of seriously rich people who play poker for small stakes. A game where the best in the world and worst can compete on the same table, and the worst player can come out on top! What a great game we play, please don't support these software providers who are damaging the game.
+++++UPDATE+++++
Already several people emailed me, do not panic it is not the same con as on Absolute Poker. It appears that people were using pokerbots. Such credit given to fulltiltpoker for giving people money when they did not even realise that they had been cheated. For a better insight into this scam here is a link from the outstanding 2+2 forum...
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12165057&an=0&page=2#Post12165057
Also another link from another site....
http://www.totalpuff.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2604
Welcome Back To Betfair...
Many people criticise Buzzer, they say he is not a great player etc. They are correct he is good but not great. However until recently betfair had a policy of only sponsoring players who brought a lot of revenue to the site. Betfair for example would buy Buzzer into a $10000 wsop event but during two months himself and all those who joined betfair through him would have paid $100000 in rake.
I am friends/friends of friends with some of the biggest players in the world. Several have appeared on shows such as high stakes poker. When I was in Las Vegas for six weeks this year I mentioned to betfair about some kind of deal to sign up new players and they didn't get back to me. However many players someone like Buzzer can sign up someone like me can double without even trying!
Tonight I was with a friend who is a trader on betfair's sports book, we decided to dabble on poker. $1000 became OVER $10000 within an hour. From speaking to a few people i found out royal_me on crypto also plays on Betfair. I still can't believe there are so many high rollers betfair haven't tried to tie down. Yes they do make lots of money, I was with one of royal_me's good friends last week and he had never even heard of rakeback! These guys average over £1000 a day profit and simply don't care.
So if you see 8 pm on a cash table near you come give a game. I try to not promote betfair as I get no benefit if i do. The STAX promotion as betfair last month was just too bizarre. If people ask me where i play i say numerous sites and wont be specific. Why promote a site to friends that you yourself can't be certain of the integrity of and also don't get any reward for doing so?
I am friends/friends of friends with some of the biggest players in the world. Several have appeared on shows such as high stakes poker. When I was in Las Vegas for six weeks this year I mentioned to betfair about some kind of deal to sign up new players and they didn't get back to me. However many players someone like Buzzer can sign up someone like me can double without even trying!
Tonight I was with a friend who is a trader on betfair's sports book, we decided to dabble on poker. $1000 became OVER $10000 within an hour. From speaking to a few people i found out royal_me on crypto also plays on Betfair. I still can't believe there are so many high rollers betfair haven't tried to tie down. Yes they do make lots of money, I was with one of royal_me's good friends last week and he had never even heard of rakeback! These guys average over £1000 a day profit and simply don't care.
So if you see 8 pm on a cash table near you come give a game. I try to not promote betfair as I get no benefit if i do. The STAX promotion as betfair last month was just too bizarre. If people ask me where i play i say numerous sites and wont be specific. Why promote a site to friends that you yourself can't be certain of the integrity of and also don't get any reward for doing so?
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Game Selection
Game selection is one of the most important aspects of making a profit from poker. Yet so many people just sit down in any old game and think they can make a profit. If you are multi-tabling with around 10 tables at a comfortable stake then you dont need to worry so much about who is at your tables. However if you are playing at the higher end of your comfort zone then you need to pay attention to this. Playing heads up games with no game selection a profitable player probably wins 60-65%. That is not high when you consider the rake will be 5% of that. However with game selection that figure will be 80% plus, just something for people to consider.
Betfair have a great feature 'Find Player', basically you can add players then if they are seated at a table you are alerted. So if you are a cash player and add all those you consistently make a profit from then one day see three of them on the same table you are bound to make a decent profit. On a random 1/2$ cash table you will not make half as much on average as one you have specially selected due to known fish seated.
When I was hammering betfair heads up games I could never understand some people who would join my tables. They were good players yet not as good as me so long term they know they will be losing against me. Leaderboards were showing I was racking up points from $50-$750 faster than all bar one player. People who play recreationally I understand wanting to play good players, however people who play poker for a living why play where you have zero value ESPECIALLY when rake is taken into consideration. Some people just wanted to play an occasional game with me and considering I am in robot mode and they are trying their hardest playing just one table the odds are almost evenly balanced. Some people I know would even sit in a game with me to try and improve by learning, however when I felt this was the case I would play differently and just go all in a lot more.
Betfair had a powerplay promotion for the world series where they generously gave $15000 wsop package to all who paid enough in fees. I comfortably made the target however several people struggled to do so. I will not name names but some players who have never specialised in playing heads up poker were popping up on $200-$400 heads up games against players who consistently topped the leaderboards every month. Just because heads up games are quick so you end up paying more rake they thought this would be a good idea. Yet I know of at least two players who lost almost $10000 playing higher stakes heads up chasing the promotion. Add the stress of completing the challenge in time and it simply was not worth it.
Game selection is one of the most underated aspects of poker, you can quite simply pick an easy 5/10nl table where you risk less money than a tough 10/20 table and will make more profit. Less risk and more profit for using some commonsense, yet most people dont put much emphasis on game selection! Playing $750-$1500 hu sit and goes on Betfair I was winning 80-90% of them as I would only play those I knew were really bad in my opinion and on $50-$100 playing 1000's a month my strike rate was only around 60%.
So before you play think, is there an easier game available.
Betfair have a great feature 'Find Player', basically you can add players then if they are seated at a table you are alerted. So if you are a cash player and add all those you consistently make a profit from then one day see three of them on the same table you are bound to make a decent profit. On a random 1/2$ cash table you will not make half as much on average as one you have specially selected due to known fish seated.
When I was hammering betfair heads up games I could never understand some people who would join my tables. They were good players yet not as good as me so long term they know they will be losing against me. Leaderboards were showing I was racking up points from $50-$750 faster than all bar one player. People who play recreationally I understand wanting to play good players, however people who play poker for a living why play where you have zero value ESPECIALLY when rake is taken into consideration. Some people just wanted to play an occasional game with me and considering I am in robot mode and they are trying their hardest playing just one table the odds are almost evenly balanced. Some people I know would even sit in a game with me to try and improve by learning, however when I felt this was the case I would play differently and just go all in a lot more.
Betfair had a powerplay promotion for the world series where they generously gave $15000 wsop package to all who paid enough in fees. I comfortably made the target however several people struggled to do so. I will not name names but some players who have never specialised in playing heads up poker were popping up on $200-$400 heads up games against players who consistently topped the leaderboards every month. Just because heads up games are quick so you end up paying more rake they thought this would be a good idea. Yet I know of at least two players who lost almost $10000 playing higher stakes heads up chasing the promotion. Add the stress of completing the challenge in time and it simply was not worth it.
Game selection is one of the most underated aspects of poker, you can quite simply pick an easy 5/10nl table where you risk less money than a tough 10/20 table and will make more profit. Less risk and more profit for using some commonsense, yet most people dont put much emphasis on game selection! Playing $750-$1500 hu sit and goes on Betfair I was winning 80-90% of them as I would only play those I knew were really bad in my opinion and on $50-$100 playing 1000's a month my strike rate was only around 60%.
So before you play think, is there an easier game available.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Ignorance.....
My blog has been up and running again for two days now, not many people were aware of this yet already quite a few viewers are back. A quick post tonight on ignorance.
Some players I know are at the same level or worse now than they were two years ago. This is because they dont want to learn. There are so many sources for players to learn from and advance their game, yet so many don't bother. Some people are playing 50+ hours a week and making no effort to improve their game other than by playing more. Anyone who devotes a lot of time to playing the game should also put some time into reading books, watching poker tv and discussing hands/strategies with other players.
Two of my favourite poker shows are Poker After Dark and High Stakes poker. The former can be viewed at www.nbc.com, you select shows then view poker after dark. Every day there is an update and the show from the night before is added, I try to wait until the weekend then watch the whole show at once. High Stakes Poker some people may say they dont want to watch as they don't play cash, or the stakes are too high yet I feel there is something for everyone to learn there. You can view HSP at www.pokertube.com .
Many people play satellites to qualify for the big live games yet they qualify for the game and sit down at a table with many pro players known to must but not to themselves. Just from watching a little bit of poker online/television one day you could be playing a $10000 event with four players on the table who you had seen play. You could have an idea if they were tight/loose/aggressive before a hand is even dealt and they would have no idea how you play. Anyone who has never played Gus Hansen but watched him a few times will know that he plays absolutely any two cards and is aggressive, from watching Phil Hellmuth people will know that he is an absolute rock who tries to keep pots as small as possible unless he has a monster.
On this weeks poker after dark the line up is great as it was last week. One player Tuan Le I watched win a wpt event several years ago and cash for 2mil $ and I thought what a lucky player he is awful. He lost pretty much 2mil$ in silly prop bets, then went and won $2mil again in another tournament. So i studied some of his plays and realised he is actually a good player, so many players have totally different styles of play. Some people appear to play so bad, yet they make huge profits as people simply cant put them on the cards they hold.
Thats all for today people, remember there is no harm in self education. Just a few poker books and programs and you will be a much better player for it.
Some players I know are at the same level or worse now than they were two years ago. This is because they dont want to learn. There are so many sources for players to learn from and advance their game, yet so many don't bother. Some people are playing 50+ hours a week and making no effort to improve their game other than by playing more. Anyone who devotes a lot of time to playing the game should also put some time into reading books, watching poker tv and discussing hands/strategies with other players.
Two of my favourite poker shows are Poker After Dark and High Stakes poker. The former can be viewed at www.nbc.com, you select shows then view poker after dark. Every day there is an update and the show from the night before is added, I try to wait until the weekend then watch the whole show at once. High Stakes Poker some people may say they dont want to watch as they don't play cash, or the stakes are too high yet I feel there is something for everyone to learn there. You can view HSP at www.pokertube.com .
Many people play satellites to qualify for the big live games yet they qualify for the game and sit down at a table with many pro players known to must but not to themselves. Just from watching a little bit of poker online/television one day you could be playing a $10000 event with four players on the table who you had seen play. You could have an idea if they were tight/loose/aggressive before a hand is even dealt and they would have no idea how you play. Anyone who has never played Gus Hansen but watched him a few times will know that he plays absolutely any two cards and is aggressive, from watching Phil Hellmuth people will know that he is an absolute rock who tries to keep pots as small as possible unless he has a monster.
On this weeks poker after dark the line up is great as it was last week. One player Tuan Le I watched win a wpt event several years ago and cash for 2mil $ and I thought what a lucky player he is awful. He lost pretty much 2mil$ in silly prop bets, then went and won $2mil again in another tournament. So i studied some of his plays and realised he is actually a good player, so many players have totally different styles of play. Some people appear to play so bad, yet they make huge profits as people simply cant put them on the cards they hold.
Thats all for today people, remember there is no harm in self education. Just a few poker books and programs and you will be a much better player for it.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Playing Poker Drunk....
Many of us have been guilty of playing drunk and some of us have horror stories. When I used to come home from a night out I couldn't help logging on and trying to win some money to pay for my night. Occasionally I won some on stakes way out of my roll, more often than not I would find myself almost crying when I woke up the next day and checked my balance to see ZERO. On some occasions I had played and not even realised! However I then realised if i got super drunk i would just collapse on the floor when I got indoors and not even make it to my bed let alone get to my computer!
So i was out again this Saturday, I went to the rooftop gardens at high street kensington. Bar a nice group of girls from maidenhead celebrating a 26 birthday it was a bit clique in there. The energy was scattered, you would have pockets of fun lively people then areas of boring stuck up people. I decided I would have to go elsewhere or get drunk to make my own action. I ended up with plan b. Most of what I drunk I have forgotten but friends have reminded me, the queue at the bar was quite slow when I arrived there just after eleven. So i ordered two bottles of peroni beer, then another two. It was at this point i decided to get drunk and had three bottles of Lauren Perrier Rose. Inbetween also several double jack daniel shots (YUCK) and several vodka shots. After this apparently I had several spirits with mixers also.
Now near the end of the night (not from my memory but friends) some posh boy was throwing ice at me. It turns out I offered him a drink which he accepted and I tipped over a full ice bucket over his head. Sorry posh boy if by random chance you read this blog, or if anybody knows him send him my wishes.
I cannot remember getting home, around 6.30 a.m. somehow i was at the car park of woodford green police station. I hadn't been arrested though as the time frame couldn't have catered for that. So from now on I shall cut back on my drinking, getting literally blind drunk is simply too risky. The recommended WEEKLY limit is 21 units for men or 14 for women. You can check your weekly intake at this link http://www.bupa.co.uk/health_information/asp/healthy_living/lifestyle/alcohol/alctest.asp
On Saturday alone i drank more than double the recommended weekly amount. Well as from now on no more excessive drinking for me. I conquered playing drunken poker but now for sake of bad health I shall cut back. Whats the point in playing poker for a week then losing it all in one drunk session, or looking after your body all week then undoing it with a massive drinking session.
Gamble responsibly, drink responsibly, live life semi-responsibly
So i was out again this Saturday, I went to the rooftop gardens at high street kensington. Bar a nice group of girls from maidenhead celebrating a 26 birthday it was a bit clique in there. The energy was scattered, you would have pockets of fun lively people then areas of boring stuck up people. I decided I would have to go elsewhere or get drunk to make my own action. I ended up with plan b. Most of what I drunk I have forgotten but friends have reminded me, the queue at the bar was quite slow when I arrived there just after eleven. So i ordered two bottles of peroni beer, then another two. It was at this point i decided to get drunk and had three bottles of Lauren Perrier Rose. Inbetween also several double jack daniel shots (YUCK) and several vodka shots. After this apparently I had several spirits with mixers also.
Now near the end of the night (not from my memory but friends) some posh boy was throwing ice at me. It turns out I offered him a drink which he accepted and I tipped over a full ice bucket over his head. Sorry posh boy if by random chance you read this blog, or if anybody knows him send him my wishes.
I cannot remember getting home, around 6.30 a.m. somehow i was at the car park of woodford green police station. I hadn't been arrested though as the time frame couldn't have catered for that. So from now on I shall cut back on my drinking, getting literally blind drunk is simply too risky. The recommended WEEKLY limit is 21 units for men or 14 for women. You can check your weekly intake at this link http://www.bupa.co.uk/health_information/asp/healthy_living/lifestyle/alcohol/alctest.asp
On Saturday alone i drank more than double the recommended weekly amount. Well as from now on no more excessive drinking for me. I conquered playing drunken poker but now for sake of bad health I shall cut back. Whats the point in playing poker for a week then losing it all in one drunk session, or looking after your body all week then undoing it with a massive drinking session.
Gamble responsibly, drink responsibly, live life semi-responsibly
Absolute Poker Scandal....
Basically there are suspicions of somebody being able to know what their opponent is holding on tables. This is briefly mentioned on tillerman's blog (http://www.tillerman.net/ one of the better blogs out there) and more detailed information can be found on forums such as 2+2. Two years ago a non poker playing friend of mine mentioned a couple of people we know who claimed to have access to some kind of software to enable them to see opponents cards or the cards still to come on the board. I did not pay much attention to this as i didn't believe it was possible. What I did know that was true was that the two people were buying up millions of pounds worth of property in Dubai. Now I am not friends with the two but I suspect them of being drug dealers and getting there money this way. Although hearing stories like the AP scandal you just never know. I would like to think that the stories are not true and just suspicions at most, but you just never know after all hackers can pretty much access any database in the world. Take a look at the poker forums where there are more facts if you are interested on this angle.
The one bit of advice I would give to all players is to play at the bigger sites, the last time i checked AP a few years ago it appeared to have a low liquidity. For higher stakes cash games I would advise perhaps partypoker as they don't do rakeback so the games are a bit softer. Either way I would advise all to avoid AP especially at the moment.
Here is the start of the link on 2+2 forum http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12075548&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1
(just added courtesy of someone on another poker forum http://www.neverwinpoker.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44393 )
The one bit of advice I would give to all players is to play at the bigger sites, the last time i checked AP a few years ago it appeared to have a low liquidity. For higher stakes cash games I would advise perhaps partypoker as they don't do rakeback so the games are a bit softer. Either way I would advise all to avoid AP especially at the moment.
Here is the start of the link on 2+2 forum http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12075548&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1
(just added courtesy of someone on another poker forum http://www.neverwinpoker.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44393 )
Monday, September 17, 2007
Shuggy16......
I am back! After the last NFL tip I have decided to quit any tipping service. It is not because one of the teams lost, in fact those who backed to my knowledge laid for a good profit in the 4th quarter. Even with a small fun bet for some people it turns into an avalanche of bets and they lose their poker bankroll. So from now on I shall try not to encourage any gambling as some people simply cant cope with it.
I am introducing a few friends to poker and pretty much starting them out the same way i got started. Play for fun and freerolls, to this day one of my best poker memories is coming 4th out of almost 10000 players on a freeroll at www.thegamingclub.com. I think I was rewarded with around $100! My friend is playing 2000 play chip sit and goes today, I wanted to join a game but at fulltiltpoker you get 1000 play chips. So i went all in every hand on a lower 'buy-in' game to double up. I lost a few times reloading with 1000 each time until i made 2000. One player I took out was Shuggy16, he continued to rail and was giving some abuse out. He then railed the 2000 point game, his tone was much better and he was being friendly now. I sent him $5 as a surprise now hopefully he can win a little bit. Lets see if he is as good as he thinks he is by playing 5 $1 games, it isn't much but it is a start!
I will often do small random things for the benefit of low stake players. I believe that the foodchain must always be looked after at all levels, OVER 99% of the high stake players today will have started out at low stakes. Also it can be a struggle at the bottom and just a small goodwill gesture can make somebodies day.
People who play at fulltiltpoker will know that often people will ask in observer chat for people to send $5. When playing some multi table games with a few of the fulltilt sponsored pros myself and Azimut were initially shocked to see how so many people used to ask the pros for money. So on several occasions myself and Azimut would send the pros $5. They would be on a cash table with $100000 perhaps and then get a pop up on their screen that they had just been transfered $5. It made for some interesting table talk on a few occasions, in fact Daniel Negreanu's blog has mentioned previously random strangers sending him money! Daniel's blog is a great read and here is the link if anyone else wants to read it http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-journal.php .
Another instance of sending $5 to people for fun was during one of the bigger games on fulltilt, myself and Dealem saw so many people asking for $5 and decided to have some fun. He would select some of the observers and then we would send $5 and issue them with a challenge. They had to double the money up then they could have another $10 as part of a mentoring scheme. At first observers didn't believe that others were getting sent any money until they then saw them in $1 games and micro cash tables. There was absolute mayhem! Nobody managed to double the initial $5.
Off to play some of the multies on fulltilt now, it really is a great site although no site will ever be as good/big as pokerstars. Good luck to Shuggy16 and everybody else grinding it out.
I am introducing a few friends to poker and pretty much starting them out the same way i got started. Play for fun and freerolls, to this day one of my best poker memories is coming 4th out of almost 10000 players on a freeroll at www.thegamingclub.com. I think I was rewarded with around $100! My friend is playing 2000 play chip sit and goes today, I wanted to join a game but at fulltiltpoker you get 1000 play chips. So i went all in every hand on a lower 'buy-in' game to double up. I lost a few times reloading with 1000 each time until i made 2000. One player I took out was Shuggy16, he continued to rail and was giving some abuse out. He then railed the 2000 point game, his tone was much better and he was being friendly now. I sent him $5 as a surprise now hopefully he can win a little bit. Lets see if he is as good as he thinks he is by playing 5 $1 games, it isn't much but it is a start!
I will often do small random things for the benefit of low stake players. I believe that the foodchain must always be looked after at all levels, OVER 99% of the high stake players today will have started out at low stakes. Also it can be a struggle at the bottom and just a small goodwill gesture can make somebodies day.
People who play at fulltiltpoker will know that often people will ask in observer chat for people to send $5. When playing some multi table games with a few of the fulltilt sponsored pros myself and Azimut were initially shocked to see how so many people used to ask the pros for money. So on several occasions myself and Azimut would send the pros $5. They would be on a cash table with $100000 perhaps and then get a pop up on their screen that they had just been transfered $5. It made for some interesting table talk on a few occasions, in fact Daniel Negreanu's blog has mentioned previously random strangers sending him money! Daniel's blog is a great read and here is the link if anyone else wants to read it http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-journal.php .
Another instance of sending $5 to people for fun was during one of the bigger games on fulltilt, myself and Dealem saw so many people asking for $5 and decided to have some fun. He would select some of the observers and then we would send $5 and issue them with a challenge. They had to double the money up then they could have another $10 as part of a mentoring scheme. At first observers didn't believe that others were getting sent any money until they then saw them in $1 games and micro cash tables. There was absolute mayhem! Nobody managed to double the initial $5.
Off to play some of the multies on fulltilt now, it really is a great site although no site will ever be as good/big as pokerstars. Good luck to Shuggy16 and everybody else grinding it out.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Golf Tips...
Coming soon, just have to put post here before Azimut steals idea like he did with NFL picks and pretends he came up with it.
Monday, September 10, 2007
NFL tonight....
Tonight there are two matches, Arizona v San Fran and then Balt v Cincy. I don't think Azimut has posted meg80's expert analysis on the matches yet tonight. Coming up in a few hours north american sports and north american resident beerman1 shall be giving his predictions. I have emailed Azimut offering a bet on all the live nfl matches during the course of this season. He is yet to respond.
****Just in****
BeerMan1 north american sports expert has given his verdict on tonights matches. All odds supplied by betfair and current at time of posting...
Firstly a prediction on the hot favourites but a close game is predicted,
(Outright) Arizona Cardinals (2.76) v San Francisco 49ers (1.55) San Francisco to win
(Handicap Arizona 3.5 start) Arizona (1.97) San Francisco 49ers (2.0) San Fransico to win
Then in the second match again it should be fairly close although a win is predicted for the underdogs...
(Outright) Baltimore Ravens (2.3) v Cincinnati Bengals (1.75) Baltimore to win
(Handicap Baltimore +2.5) Baltimore Ravens (2.04) Cincinnati Bengals (1.92) Baltimore win
Unlike some people all predictions will not simply be on the favourites, all relevent information is studied and expect many upsets to be predicted!
****Just in****
BeerMan1 north american sports expert has given his verdict on tonights matches. All odds supplied by betfair and current at time of posting...
Firstly a prediction on the hot favourites but a close game is predicted,
(Outright) Arizona Cardinals (2.76) v San Francisco 49ers (1.55) San Francisco to win
(Handicap Arizona 3.5 start) Arizona (1.97) San Francisco 49ers (2.0) San Fransico to win
Then in the second match again it should be fairly close although a win is predicted for the underdogs...
(Outright) Baltimore Ravens (2.3) v Cincinnati Bengals (1.75) Baltimore to win
(Handicap Baltimore +2.5) Baltimore Ravens (2.04) Cincinnati Bengals (1.92) Baltimore win
Unlike some people all predictions will not simply be on the favourites, all relevent information is studied and expect many upsets to be predicted!
nfl 100% strike rate so far...
Having predicted colts to beat saints by 20+ but not posted we started afresh tonight. In running Dallas down 6 points resident expert BeerDonk predicted Dallas would win outright and on handicap. The handicap was -6.5 and they ran out comfortable 45-35 winners. Don't let the scoreline fool you, it was an easy victory. Luke Guest (meg80) is contracted to Azimuts blog so for all future tips we will be with just BeerDonk. Have no fear he knows what he is doing.
EMERGENCY nfl update...
Azimut lets his fans down, two minutes into the first quarter and no advice from him. I am using resident experts luke guest (meg80) and colin procyshyn (beerman1 beerdonk) and they tell me Dallas will win. Bear in mind they are a touchdown down now, i shall update later.
seven out of eight...
since last sunday i have been absolutely drunk and wrecked for seven out of eight days! maybe this makes posts more enjoyable? anyways from 1st of october i am closing blog. one month and then thats it folks! i am considering if i should give some strategy advice or just stories. probably the latter as i dont believe anyone should recieve gold bricks for free!
Sunday, September 9, 2007
25 cents and a two buffallo wings....
The summer before this during wsop2006 I was with friends railing Azimut on a final table at the Venetian ($300ish game). Azimut and deejay were in the last 5. Myself and Luke (meg80) got a bit peckish so went to get something to eat at a restraunt in the casino. It must have been a friday/saturday night as it was quite busy. At the front of the queue yet this miserable lady kept seating people before us so long as it was a male and female couple. The lady doing the seating was also waitressing which is unusual. Maybe she assumed couples would tip her more? Once seated it took forever to take our order. Finally the fat cow (hell yeah she looked like she ate what people left behind on their plates) came over and said...
"Are you ready to order now?" to which i replied...
"Only if you are sure there isn't anybody else left in Las Vegas who hasn't ordered yet".
She then swapped with a waiter much to my delight. Towards the end of our meal the greedy fat pig waitress was back, clearly she thought she was entitled to get the tip? We couldn't quite tell if she was greedier for food or money. So bear in mind we are in vegas where its crucial for excellent service seeing as tips are essential. Slow, poor, rude service is not forgotten just by a smile from a greasy pig when the bill is given. So we decided to give food and cash to miss piggy, we put a quarter (25 cents) and two buffallo wings inside the case holding the bill and closed it. We then went to the slot machines and waited for miss piggy to collect her tip. She picked it up then 25 cents fell out and she couldnt close it completely so opened up and two buffallo wings fell out onto the floor. A sheer look of shock was on her face and to this very day Luke and I am not sure if it was because of what she was tipped or if it was because the chicken wings had dropped on the floor.
Nobody should ever feel pressured to tip if the service is awful. Some poker dealers, wait many poker dealers often get $100+ an hour tips during busy periods. These are the friendly dealers, always confuses me how some dealers are rude. They will call the floor for the smallest of things, if someone swears at themselves they will call the manager and EVEN once I saw a DEALER criticising a player for time spent making a decision. It makes no sense as I am guessing they are working for around $10 an hour plus tips, manners and a smile and you earn much more so simple.
"Are you ready to order now?" to which i replied...
"Only if you are sure there isn't anybody else left in Las Vegas who hasn't ordered yet".
She then swapped with a waiter much to my delight. Towards the end of our meal the greedy fat pig waitress was back, clearly she thought she was entitled to get the tip? We couldn't quite tell if she was greedier for food or money. So bear in mind we are in vegas where its crucial for excellent service seeing as tips are essential. Slow, poor, rude service is not forgotten just by a smile from a greasy pig when the bill is given. So we decided to give food and cash to miss piggy, we put a quarter (25 cents) and two buffallo wings inside the case holding the bill and closed it. We then went to the slot machines and waited for miss piggy to collect her tip. She picked it up then 25 cents fell out and she couldnt close it completely so opened up and two buffallo wings fell out onto the floor. A sheer look of shock was on her face and to this very day Luke and I am not sure if it was because of what she was tipped or if it was because the chicken wings had dropped on the floor.
Nobody should ever feel pressured to tip if the service is awful. Some poker dealers, wait many poker dealers often get $100+ an hour tips during busy periods. These are the friendly dealers, always confuses me how some dealers are rude. They will call the floor for the smallest of things, if someone swears at themselves they will call the manager and EVEN once I saw a DEALER criticising a player for time spent making a decision. It makes no sense as I am guessing they are working for around $10 an hour plus tips, manners and a smile and you earn much more so simple.
Fatfoot/Trampfoot/sadfoot
All the additional names to go along with cheatfoot grassfoot etc etc. Yes fastfoot the guy who continuously cheats on betfair poker. His partner in crime ontheup is now playing on the cryptologic network as ontheup45 so be careful when you see him around. Some people are probably aware that you can sit on a table with two accounts from the same ip address on betfair, i recall many games with tw18 and fastfoot on the same table. Now on the poker forum fastfoot posts as tw18 and now fastfoot also. I am not sure of the exact situation here but i wouldn't put it past him to be entering the $200-400 sit and goes with multiple accounts.
Yesterday Azimut was trying to wind me up to entice me to go to the betfair forum game, so i wound him up back. I would absolutely never ever go out of my way to hit anybody in my entire life. I had a great night last night which I wouldn't have had if i decided to waste some time on a loser. Here is the description given to me of fastfoot '40+, ugly and definitely not good looking italian, bit porky and as quiet as a mouse. Added to this wearing golf style clothes clearly in the hope that it will be enough for someone to start conversation with him'. As accurate as this description is I can't be 100% on yet seeing as it comes from the mouth of a policeman I think it will be quite accurate. Fastfoot has never had any friends on the betfair poker forum and spends his time cheating other players so why he went to the live game I will never know. Perhaps for some sick/sadistical reason of wanting to see the people he rips off.
My night to keep it brief started at Art bar knightsbridge went on to eat at maroush beauchamp place. Then to mandarin bar and finally off to cafe de paris. Many beautiful women involved and lots of drink, how insane would I have had to be to worry or feel the need to act upon what was said by an ugly, fat 40+ loner. LOLOL at these cyber warriors, no wonder they feel the need to say what they do online. Still credit for having the audacity to turn up after saying so many lies, although I guess many people wouldn't have realised who they were playing.
Yesterday Azimut was trying to wind me up to entice me to go to the betfair forum game, so i wound him up back. I would absolutely never ever go out of my way to hit anybody in my entire life. I had a great night last night which I wouldn't have had if i decided to waste some time on a loser. Here is the description given to me of fastfoot '40+, ugly and definitely not good looking italian, bit porky and as quiet as a mouse. Added to this wearing golf style clothes clearly in the hope that it will be enough for someone to start conversation with him'. As accurate as this description is I can't be 100% on yet seeing as it comes from the mouth of a policeman I think it will be quite accurate. Fastfoot has never had any friends on the betfair poker forum and spends his time cheating other players so why he went to the live game I will never know. Perhaps for some sick/sadistical reason of wanting to see the people he rips off.
My night to keep it brief started at Art bar knightsbridge went on to eat at maroush beauchamp place. Then to mandarin bar and finally off to cafe de paris. Many beautiful women involved and lots of drink, how insane would I have had to be to worry or feel the need to act upon what was said by an ugly, fat 40+ loner. LOLOL at these cyber warriors, no wonder they feel the need to say what they do online. Still credit for having the audacity to turn up after saying so many lies, although I guess many people wouldn't have realised who they were playing.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Cyber Warriors.....
OK we have all come across them, the kind who threaten and chat shit. Tomorrow one of them 'fastfoot' is supposed to be in croydon for the betfair game. He is allegedly a kick boxing champ etc etc. I am willing to take that chance and shall be meeting him later on today if he turns up. Every now and then people deserve to meet their maker. Maybe he really is a kick boxing champion as he claims and he will kick my ass, if that happens o well. I have spent enough years in Baghdad and Beirut to take this chance. I have to thank Azimut for informing me of Fastfoots insults and presence at this game. Unless I am arrested 24 hours from now I shall post an update! It is well known I have a long standing anger management problem yet this is one thing I simply can't ignore...no matter what the consequences.
Nothing to hide, just ignore the Leeds shirt, Rio gave me a few back then! Either way just a bit of evidence that actions speak louder than words. People always say i will shoot you etc, yet very few people have even ever fired firearms. For some reason the scandinavian nurse is also part of the picture that was downloaded. So here you have it an expert marksmen and lucky fucker who pulls fit scandinavian nurses in one! Life is sweeeeet!
Nothing to hide, just ignore the Leeds shirt, Rio gave me a few back then! Either way just a bit of evidence that actions speak louder than words. People always say i will shoot you etc, yet very few people have even ever fired firearms. For some reason the scandinavian nurse is also part of the picture that was downloaded. So here you have it an expert marksmen and lucky fucker who pulls fit scandinavian nurses in one! Life is sweeeeet!
Friday, September 7, 2007
A big weekend ahead in London for poker players....
OK todays post is going to cover the weekend ahead in London. One of the greatest cities in the world has a busy poker weekend ahead. In the centre of london we have the wsope starting and in the suburbs we have a betfair forum game called bwcop running. The wsope is an amazing event hosted by betfair, many of the worlds top players shall be in attendance. Forget BAPT which most of the pros shunned to play at foxwoods, this is the real deal. I expect no less than 50 TOP american players to play and a field in excess of 600. This is the real deal, poker has finally hit the shores of the U.K.
The last trip i made to Las Vegas i was so impressed at the quality of play from the young americans. There is a whole new force coming through stronger than anything ever seen. It makes me laugh to see some english kids winning a few $100 tournaments online and declaring themselves the next best things. These american kids are different gravy, start a tournament with 4000 chips and by the first break they have 10000-20000 chips (they make dubai and hawko's chip accumalition skills early doors look weak!).
One player I will be shocked if he doesn't make the top 20 is Justin Bonomo , another young american on a hot streak is Jared Hamby (88th in wsop main event). I am not sure if Jared has entered the wsope. It is a big effort for a young american to travel to London and pay $20000 to enter a tournament, especially as they then have to race back to play Borgata which is one of the best tournaments in the world.
Now on to the suburbs, the previous two winners who play as 'Reactive' and 'Strokeit' i know both quite well. I am tempted to say they are better live players than online, but when actually analysing the facts I think it may merely be a case of stretching ones resources. Playing live you will never play more than one table at a time. I am sure that when reactive or strokeit are playing just one tournament online they will do well. Just my opinion but I feel many players dilute their chances with multi tabling.
I was going to go to the forum game to see a few familiar faces, but after the recent STAX farce this simply isn't possible. Add to this a well known cheat Fastfoot will be in attendance, he is the guy who had the audacity to cheat with ontheup in 6paks and heads up games then report me and get me a chat ban for calling him cheating scum. It has taken me many years to have some kind of control over my temper, every now and then I lose it and usually over the most trivial thing. The last thing I need to do is lose it over betfair rigging a promotion or some two bob cheat called fastfoot who rigs $50 sit and goes. For these reasons I shall be avoiding the live game. Amazing how I was on course to be playing WSOPE £10000 buy in until the strange goings on at Betfair. Still no information on how the point scoring worked is out, who believes betfair will ever run a STAX related promotion again! I scored 75% and someone who scored 64% is ahead of me, everyone knows the truth.Everyone at the Betfair forum game have fun, after all that is all you are playing a fun game.
These kids in america really are a million miles ahead. Best of wishes to Justin (zeejustin) in the main event and hopefully i shall see him over the weekend. If one of the older pro's is to win then i wish it would be 'The Bear' a.k.a. pound for pound the greatest poker player in the world
Barry 
Greenstein.
Justin Bonomo and Jared Hamby two of the best young players in the world. (that sounds a bit wrong, perhaps i should have said Justin and Jared two of the best players in the world?)
Tomorrows post will likely be '25 cents and a buffallo wing'. Betfair threedom farce is on temporary hold as hopefully they can still give something to unstable who final tabled in BAPT and was advertised on Betfair poker for some time as a threedom pass winner.
The last trip i made to Las Vegas i was so impressed at the quality of play from the young americans. There is a whole new force coming through stronger than anything ever seen. It makes me laugh to see some english kids winning a few $100 tournaments online and declaring themselves the next best things. These american kids are different gravy, start a tournament with 4000 chips and by the first break they have 10000-20000 chips (they make dubai and hawko's chip accumalition skills early doors look weak!).
One player I will be shocked if he doesn't make the top 20 is Justin Bonomo , another young american on a hot streak is Jared Hamby (88th in wsop main event). I am not sure if Jared has entered the wsope. It is a big effort for a young american to travel to London and pay $20000 to enter a tournament, especially as they then have to race back to play Borgata which is one of the best tournaments in the world.
Now on to the suburbs, the previous two winners who play as 'Reactive' and 'Strokeit' i know both quite well. I am tempted to say they are better live players than online, but when actually analysing the facts I think it may merely be a case of stretching ones resources. Playing live you will never play more than one table at a time. I am sure that when reactive or strokeit are playing just one tournament online they will do well. Just my opinion but I feel many players dilute their chances with multi tabling.
I was going to go to the forum game to see a few familiar faces, but after the recent STAX farce this simply isn't possible. Add to this a well known cheat Fastfoot will be in attendance, he is the guy who had the audacity to cheat with ontheup in 6paks and heads up games then report me and get me a chat ban for calling him cheating scum. It has taken me many years to have some kind of control over my temper, every now and then I lose it and usually over the most trivial thing. The last thing I need to do is lose it over betfair rigging a promotion or some two bob cheat called fastfoot who rigs $50 sit and goes. For these reasons I shall be avoiding the live game. Amazing how I was on course to be playing WSOPE £10000 buy in until the strange goings on at Betfair. Still no information on how the point scoring worked is out, who believes betfair will ever run a STAX related promotion again! I scored 75% and someone who scored 64% is ahead of me, everyone knows the truth.Everyone at the Betfair forum game have fun, after all that is all you are playing a fun game.
These kids in america really are a million miles ahead. Best of wishes to Justin (zeejustin) in the main event and hopefully i shall see him over the weekend. If one of the older pro's is to win then i wish it would be 'The Bear' a.k.a. pound for pound the greatest poker player in the world
Barry 
Greenstein.Justin Bonomo and Jared Hamby two of the best young players in the world. (that sounds a bit wrong, perhaps i should have said Justin and Jared two of the best players in the world?)
Tomorrows post will likely be '25 cents and a buffallo wing'. Betfair threedom farce is on temporary hold as hopefully they can still give something to unstable who final tabled in BAPT and was advertised on Betfair poker for some time as a threedom pass winner.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Utter Bollocks....
Really didn't want to add this but i feel i have to. Extract from betfair poker...
All the text below is betfairs wording. What part of a dogfight is there when it is a 31 day contest and 7 pm is top for 25 of the first 26 days? Only betfair could try and make a race out of a rigged outcome. Also the bullshit about lets see how wingding will do in the wsope when betfair knew from the off he wouldn't be playing. Then even MORE lies about STAX EVER being used again. If stax is ever used again i will go back to betfair poker and take back all i have ever said about the betfair rig. Its just so wrong to keep misleading the customers in this way. Customers want to see a formula for stax now the event is over, everyone knows it was a rig so betfair wont reveal the formula by saying it will be used again which EVERYONE knows isn't the case. Many people will tell you that live events cost a lot of money due to hidden expenses. I said i wouldn't play any live events for two more years as they simply cost too much money, stax is one of those events I would have made an exception for as I live in London and it wouldn't have cost me ONE penny in expenses. It is such a shame to be cheated by betfair out of a wsope seat for it to then be given to someone who sold it withing MINUTES for £8000 or less. After rakeback etc betfair will lose that in two months of lost custom from me.
http://promo.betfair.com/gmd/microsites/2007/wsope2007/stax-ends.php
STAX ends in drama!
The STAX# WSOPE promotion came to a dramatic climax last night with two more $23k packages being snapped up by poker players Babes10 and poker1976. They will now join overall STAX# winner Wingding2 at next week’s Main Event.
Overall Competition
Wow, what a dog fight this turned out to be!
In the end four Betfair Poker players; Wingding2 (UK), 7 pm (UK), fuzzard (IRE) and EnAnNi (GER) really fought to the wire to take down the title of the STAX Godfather!
All four managed to achieve mind-boggling scores by proving their poker talent at a range of disciplines and with the lead changing many times throughout the month, it was eventually Wingding2 who took down the title with a score of 99.79 – just 0.02 above second place! Many congratulations to him and unlucky to the guys who just missed out after such a brave fight!
We will be monitoring wingding2’s progress throughout the WSOPE to see whether our maths boffins got the STAX# formula right and predicted a potential WSOPE champ! Word on the grapevine is that heads will roll if he crashes out first! Latest: Wingding2 has sold his seat as is a teacher and can’t make event!!!
Cross Country Final
After a tense 12 man battle, Scandinavia triumphed with the Great Dane, poker1976 coming out on top after nearly three hours of nerve-jangling poker! He qualified for the final by decimating his fellow countrymen in the Danish division with a STAX#RATING of 90.65.
Position
Player
Country
STAX#RATING
1st
poker1976
Denmark
90.65
2nd
elizegi
Sweden
86
3rd
gozarix
Greece/Cyprus
89.89
4th
Tesa
Finland
93.32
5th
7 pm
UK
99.74
6th
GR8NO
Spain
91.15
7th
Virenque
Norway
85.86
8th
Sh4rky33
Eastern Europe
84
9th
SERIALPOKER
Rest of the World
84.92
10th
popopopo
Italy
74.92
11th
fuzzard
Ireland
99.77
12th
EnAnNi
Germany
99.41
Top 10% invitational
A large field of 815 players turned out for their free shot at a WSOPE package in the STAX# Top 10% Invitational and it was eventually Babes10 (Cyprus, STAX#RATING: 56.43) who took their chances by beating bingomite (UK, STAX#RATING: 63.53) and OmanSultan (Denmark, STAX#RATING: 69.85) to the $23k top prize. He will now have a shot at the estimated WSOPE $15 Million prize pool!
Congratulations to all those who made the final. STAX#RATINGS are currently being rested but will be re-launched very soon with further amazing prizes on offer.
All the text below is betfairs wording. What part of a dogfight is there when it is a 31 day contest and 7 pm is top for 25 of the first 26 days? Only betfair could try and make a race out of a rigged outcome. Also the bullshit about lets see how wingding will do in the wsope when betfair knew from the off he wouldn't be playing. Then even MORE lies about STAX EVER being used again. If stax is ever used again i will go back to betfair poker and take back all i have ever said about the betfair rig. Its just so wrong to keep misleading the customers in this way. Customers want to see a formula for stax now the event is over, everyone knows it was a rig so betfair wont reveal the formula by saying it will be used again which EVERYONE knows isn't the case. Many people will tell you that live events cost a lot of money due to hidden expenses. I said i wouldn't play any live events for two more years as they simply cost too much money, stax is one of those events I would have made an exception for as I live in London and it wouldn't have cost me ONE penny in expenses. It is such a shame to be cheated by betfair out of a wsope seat for it to then be given to someone who sold it withing MINUTES for £8000 or less. After rakeback etc betfair will lose that in two months of lost custom from me.
http://promo.betfair.com/gmd/microsites/2007/wsope2007/stax-ends.php
STAX ends in drama!
The STAX# WSOPE promotion came to a dramatic climax last night with two more $23k packages being snapped up by poker players Babes10 and poker1976. They will now join overall STAX# winner Wingding2 at next week’s Main Event.
Overall Competition
Wow, what a dog fight this turned out to be!
In the end four Betfair Poker players; Wingding2 (UK), 7 pm (UK), fuzzard (IRE) and EnAnNi (GER) really fought to the wire to take down the title of the STAX Godfather!
All four managed to achieve mind-boggling scores by proving their poker talent at a range of disciplines and with the lead changing many times throughout the month, it was eventually Wingding2 who took down the title with a score of 99.79 – just 0.02 above second place! Many congratulations to him and unlucky to the guys who just missed out after such a brave fight!
We will be monitoring wingding2’s progress throughout the WSOPE to see whether our maths boffins got the STAX# formula right and predicted a potential WSOPE champ! Word on the grapevine is that heads will roll if he crashes out first! Latest: Wingding2 has sold his seat as is a teacher and can’t make event!!!
Cross Country Final
After a tense 12 man battle, Scandinavia triumphed with the Great Dane, poker1976 coming out on top after nearly three hours of nerve-jangling poker! He qualified for the final by decimating his fellow countrymen in the Danish division with a STAX#RATING of 90.65.
Position
Player
Country
STAX#RATING
1st
poker1976
Denmark
90.65
2nd
elizegi
Sweden
86
3rd
gozarix
Greece/Cyprus
89.89
4th
Tesa
Finland
93.32
5th
7 pm
UK
99.74
6th
GR8NO
Spain
91.15
7th
Virenque
Norway
85.86
8th
Sh4rky33
Eastern Europe
84
9th
SERIALPOKER
Rest of the World
84.92
10th
popopopo
Italy
74.92
11th
fuzzard
Ireland
99.77
12th
EnAnNi
Germany
99.41
Top 10% invitational
A large field of 815 players turned out for their free shot at a WSOPE package in the STAX# Top 10% Invitational and it was eventually Babes10 (Cyprus, STAX#RATING: 56.43) who took their chances by beating bingomite (UK, STAX#RATING: 63.53) and OmanSultan (Denmark, STAX#RATING: 69.85) to the $23k top prize. He will now have a shot at the estimated WSOPE $15 Million prize pool!
Congratulations to all those who made the final. STAX#RATINGS are currently being rested but will be re-launched very soon with further amazing prizes on offer.
A Night In Paris...
Ok several people are asking me in private for the betfair threedom farce story, however I don't know if I can reveal the inside story just yet. Whilst there are corrupt and retarded elements still within Betfair poker I would feel guilty questioning the good work of people such as Ruru and Paul T. Whilst i think over this dilemma I shall leave the blog readers a tale from France. At the end of the day the blog is about poker and myself, so i believe people need to also know a bit about my non poker related experiences. I shall bring some 'James Bond' type tales of action and espionage in the near future!
Ok time for a Night in Paris...
Around ten years ago a good friend of mine had finished with his girlfriend due to her father not accepting him, to get away he decided to spend some time with relatives in Cyprus. He invited me and i agreed to go for two weeks. I took £2000 with me for this trip, where he had relatives almost everything was paid for and i probably didn't spend over £200 in two weeks! During this time i went to a greek wedding, visited the church up the top of the middle of the mountain and done many things which i remember with a true affection. However things such as going to Ayai Napa simply didn't happen as my friend was too heart broken. At the end of my two weeks my friend who was staying longer dropped me off at Larnaca airport. As scheduled I boarded the plane and fell asleep before take off, now being asleep I missed what happened! During take off one of the planes engines blew up and as the plane was taking off it was forced to touch down and cancel take off!
Looking back i did wonder why some local guy in overalls was smashing one of the engines with a hammer as we was boarding the plane. I mean what good can smashing something with a hammer actually do! Now a message came up saying the flight was delayed for seven hours, now anyone with experience can tell you whatever the initial time advertised for a delay it shall actually be much longer! On the way back to the airport terminal i notice Michelle Collins with her young child walking towards the Cyprus Airlines desk. She had recently left eastenders and had been doing some kind of holiday documentary in Cyprus. I decided if a tv star can get out of Cyprus without a seven hour delay then so can I! I went to the desk after here and with a bit of waffle was offered a flight out of Cyprus with a connecting flight to London!
The flight to Frankfurt connecting with one to London simply didn't appeal as quite frankly Frankfurt airport is boring and crappy. The lovely lady informed me I could catch a British airways flight to Paris then a connecting flight to London. However if i missed my connecting flight as was possible due to it being a tight schedule I was responsible for any additional fees. I said I would take my chance, I jump on British Airways flight to Paris and before I know it I have landed!
The french being their usual useless lazy ass selves my luggage was the last off of the plane and took over an hour to reach me! I found a B.A. desk and was told all flights to London had now left.... the last being ten minutes ago! Now I was told in Cyprus that if i missed my connecting flight it was the chance i was taking and not their responsibility.... so i duly informed them that they had arranged for me to get two flights and messed me up! They arranged for me to fly out of Paris first thing in the morning and in the mean time put me up at a Marriot near the airport.
A car took me to the hotel which was fully booked, after some confusion they found me a room and told me that i was also entitled to some dinner and breakfast. Now i hadn't put a card down so i exceeded the £100 budget they had told me I had. I ordered smoked salmon and fresh fruits. So I am there in my early 20's just back from holiday in Cyprus where I was with a love struck friend who prevented me from going out to clubs and having a good time. Also I have almost £2000 burning a hole in my pocket! I got changed, changed around £200 for 2000 francs in the hotel and ordered a taxi to the best nightspot Paris had to offer!
I arrive at the club, have several bottles of champagne (i must have used my card?) and decided it was crap, nowhere near as good as London. So i left the club and asked for a taxi, (the taxi from the hotel to there had cost around 300 francs £30). A taxi stops and being used to asking approximately how much a cab home will cost before i get into it in London I ask the guy. He says around 800 francs. Wait a minute, I have paid 300 francs to get here, I wont pay more than double to get back! I say to the cab no thanks, to which he informs me I must pay him 30 francs (£3) just for stopping. I say fuck off, I wont give you a penny. So he parks his cab in the middle of a one way street and prevents any cars from passing. I assumed cars behind would beep and make him move on, instead they patiently waited!
Before long the police arrived and explained that once a cab stopped it had an initial charge of 30 francs, I explained I hadn't set foot in the cab and thusfore wouldn't give one franc. I was again told i must pay 30 francs to the fucker. So i done the wise move of ripping up a 100 franc note in front of them instead. Off i was bundled into the back of a police van. Then they took me to the nearest police station.
Now i am in the police station, where the French pretend they dont speak english(most of them do) and in return i pretend i can't speak french (i can). They order me to take my belt off, then my shoes. I refused to take my shoes off, then your local french-algerian policeman decides to do a judo move and sweep my feet from behind. He obviously isn't aware of the years I have spent in the middle east and I see his move before he even starts it! I switch my foot back around his take his feet from under him and he falls on his big fat french arse. To which the over cops laugh, then they get up and hit me with a few sticks!
So I am now in a french police cell, they are so prehistoric. Nothing like english police cells, all concrete with a bench and a HOLE in the floor for a toilet. In the morning they wake me up to release me with no charge. Wait did i mention i had almost £2000 with me? Well when i woke up the money was around £500! Robbers, they just let me out through a back door and there I was in the middle of Paris.
I find a cab and get back to my hotel where the £100 smoked salmon and fresh fruit is still untouched! I pack my bags and catch a cab to the airport. Ok I have missed my morning flight so I will catch the next. The next is full and so on and so on. This happens to around four flights and then there is only one flight left to London that day (fridays from paris are IMPOSSIBLE). Even though I am on standby i manage to beg the lady who now felt sorry for me being there for so long to give me a confirmed flight. I managed to catch the last plane home from Paris that night, a guy was left behind who spent thousands a week flying first class on British Airways between London and Paris. Nice when manners mean more than money.
I arrive back home in London around 24 hours after I had arrived at Larnaca airport, later that night I met a friend who had JUST got back from cyprus. He had been booked on the same flight as me initially and waited for the replacement flight. During this time I had been to Paris, been to the best nightclub there, been arrested, had a fight with the police and spent the day on standby at the airport! So at least i was correct in knowing the initial time given for the delay would be longer!
So to this very day I have a hatred of Paris and all things french (except Thierry Henry). I will never ever take a girlfriend there for a break and instead choose amsterdam, new york or a spanish city. The french are ignorant wankers and hopeless at poker too.
Anyways this relates to my poker blog because, wait it doesn't! Just wanted to give my french story to everyone else and the reason why I hate the onion/garlic breath fuckers.
Tomorrow I shall post the betfair freedom farce story..... if not I shall post 'A Night In Las Vegas'.
p.s. any posts on Betfair poker forums as Staffordbull are actually posted by Azimut. He often likes to mess around as proven by his days as 'Son of Punterz'. Any questions about betfair forum posts please direct to www.azimutpoker.blogspot.com
Ok time for a Night in Paris...
Around ten years ago a good friend of mine had finished with his girlfriend due to her father not accepting him, to get away he decided to spend some time with relatives in Cyprus. He invited me and i agreed to go for two weeks. I took £2000 with me for this trip, where he had relatives almost everything was paid for and i probably didn't spend over £200 in two weeks! During this time i went to a greek wedding, visited the church up the top of the middle of the mountain and done many things which i remember with a true affection. However things such as going to Ayai Napa simply didn't happen as my friend was too heart broken. At the end of my two weeks my friend who was staying longer dropped me off at Larnaca airport. As scheduled I boarded the plane and fell asleep before take off, now being asleep I missed what happened! During take off one of the planes engines blew up and as the plane was taking off it was forced to touch down and cancel take off!
Looking back i did wonder why some local guy in overalls was smashing one of the engines with a hammer as we was boarding the plane. I mean what good can smashing something with a hammer actually do! Now a message came up saying the flight was delayed for seven hours, now anyone with experience can tell you whatever the initial time advertised for a delay it shall actually be much longer! On the way back to the airport terminal i notice Michelle Collins with her young child walking towards the Cyprus Airlines desk. She had recently left eastenders and had been doing some kind of holiday documentary in Cyprus. I decided if a tv star can get out of Cyprus without a seven hour delay then so can I! I went to the desk after here and with a bit of waffle was offered a flight out of Cyprus with a connecting flight to London!
The flight to Frankfurt connecting with one to London simply didn't appeal as quite frankly Frankfurt airport is boring and crappy. The lovely lady informed me I could catch a British airways flight to Paris then a connecting flight to London. However if i missed my connecting flight as was possible due to it being a tight schedule I was responsible for any additional fees. I said I would take my chance, I jump on British Airways flight to Paris and before I know it I have landed!
The french being their usual useless lazy ass selves my luggage was the last off of the plane and took over an hour to reach me! I found a B.A. desk and was told all flights to London had now left.... the last being ten minutes ago! Now I was told in Cyprus that if i missed my connecting flight it was the chance i was taking and not their responsibility.... so i duly informed them that they had arranged for me to get two flights and messed me up! They arranged for me to fly out of Paris first thing in the morning and in the mean time put me up at a Marriot near the airport.
A car took me to the hotel which was fully booked, after some confusion they found me a room and told me that i was also entitled to some dinner and breakfast. Now i hadn't put a card down so i exceeded the £100 budget they had told me I had. I ordered smoked salmon and fresh fruits. So I am there in my early 20's just back from holiday in Cyprus where I was with a love struck friend who prevented me from going out to clubs and having a good time. Also I have almost £2000 burning a hole in my pocket! I got changed, changed around £200 for 2000 francs in the hotel and ordered a taxi to the best nightspot Paris had to offer!
I arrive at the club, have several bottles of champagne (i must have used my card?) and decided it was crap, nowhere near as good as London. So i left the club and asked for a taxi, (the taxi from the hotel to there had cost around 300 francs £30). A taxi stops and being used to asking approximately how much a cab home will cost before i get into it in London I ask the guy. He says around 800 francs. Wait a minute, I have paid 300 francs to get here, I wont pay more than double to get back! I say to the cab no thanks, to which he informs me I must pay him 30 francs (£3) just for stopping. I say fuck off, I wont give you a penny. So he parks his cab in the middle of a one way street and prevents any cars from passing. I assumed cars behind would beep and make him move on, instead they patiently waited!
Before long the police arrived and explained that once a cab stopped it had an initial charge of 30 francs, I explained I hadn't set foot in the cab and thusfore wouldn't give one franc. I was again told i must pay 30 francs to the fucker. So i done the wise move of ripping up a 100 franc note in front of them instead. Off i was bundled into the back of a police van. Then they took me to the nearest police station.
Now i am in the police station, where the French pretend they dont speak english(most of them do) and in return i pretend i can't speak french (i can). They order me to take my belt off, then my shoes. I refused to take my shoes off, then your local french-algerian policeman decides to do a judo move and sweep my feet from behind. He obviously isn't aware of the years I have spent in the middle east and I see his move before he even starts it! I switch my foot back around his take his feet from under him and he falls on his big fat french arse. To which the over cops laugh, then they get up and hit me with a few sticks!
So I am now in a french police cell, they are so prehistoric. Nothing like english police cells, all concrete with a bench and a HOLE in the floor for a toilet. In the morning they wake me up to release me with no charge. Wait did i mention i had almost £2000 with me? Well when i woke up the money was around £500! Robbers, they just let me out through a back door and there I was in the middle of Paris.
I find a cab and get back to my hotel where the £100 smoked salmon and fresh fruit is still untouched! I pack my bags and catch a cab to the airport. Ok I have missed my morning flight so I will catch the next. The next is full and so on and so on. This happens to around four flights and then there is only one flight left to London that day (fridays from paris are IMPOSSIBLE). Even though I am on standby i manage to beg the lady who now felt sorry for me being there for so long to give me a confirmed flight. I managed to catch the last plane home from Paris that night, a guy was left behind who spent thousands a week flying first class on British Airways between London and Paris. Nice when manners mean more than money.
I arrive back home in London around 24 hours after I had arrived at Larnaca airport, later that night I met a friend who had JUST got back from cyprus. He had been booked on the same flight as me initially and waited for the replacement flight. During this time I had been to Paris, been to the best nightclub there, been arrested, had a fight with the police and spent the day on standby at the airport! So at least i was correct in knowing the initial time given for the delay would be longer!
So to this very day I have a hatred of Paris and all things french (except Thierry Henry). I will never ever take a girlfriend there for a break and instead choose amsterdam, new york or a spanish city. The french are ignorant wankers and hopeless at poker too.
Anyways this relates to my poker blog because, wait it doesn't! Just wanted to give my french story to everyone else and the reason why I hate the onion/garlic breath fuckers.
Tomorrow I shall post the betfair freedom farce story..... if not I shall post 'A Night In Las Vegas'.
p.s. any posts on Betfair poker forums as Staffordbull are actually posted by Azimut. He often likes to mess around as proven by his days as 'Son of Punterz'. Any questions about betfair forum posts please direct to www.azimutpoker.blogspot.com
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Change of plan.....
Initially my second entry was going to be about the phantom threedom passes. However a slight change of topic today. Not directly poker related but definitely relevent to every single person who shall read this blog.
Yesterday a remarkable woman Jane Tomlinson passed away, whilst it was only a matter of time many people are filled with a great amount of sorrow. Jane was first diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 1990, she learned it was incurable ten years later. Many people would have wallowed in self pity yet Jane decided to raise awareness of terminal illness sufferers and to make a point that one should always live life to the full. During the 7 years from first learning she was terminally ill until she passed away (a period much longer than any specialist predicted), she ran many marathons and competed in many stamina events such as triathlons. In the process raising well over a million pounds (two million dollars) for cancer charities and people with terminal illnesses.
Such was the physical and mental strength of Jane several tabloid newspapers actually put private detectives on her after suggestions she was faking her illness. At the end of the day everybody can learn many things from this remarkable lady...
1) Live life to the full (sadly hardly any of us will)
2) Give something to people less fortunate than ourselves.
3) We all have an inner strength that we can tap into if we require it.
Basically in relation to your average poker player this can be translated to not dedicating all of your time to playing poker no matter how much you are winning, when times are bad dig deep and fight you way back out of it. I dont agree with most charities as so much money is wasted on administration fees yet such is the profile of Jane's charity I doubt too many people would be brave enough to charge too much in fees.
http://www.janesappeal.com/ is where direct donations can be made, i doubt that a single person alive today won't be affected by cancer or someone close having cancer in their lifetime. At the end of this month I shall personally make a donation, I would do so now but would rather give a % of my winnings this month....although even if i run at a loss I shall still make a donation.
So every poker player remember strength/determination and dedication and never lose sight of what is important to you.
(The threedom pass farce shall be posted tomorrow 95%)
Yesterday a remarkable woman Jane Tomlinson passed away, whilst it was only a matter of time many people are filled with a great amount of sorrow. Jane was first diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 1990, she learned it was incurable ten years later. Many people would have wallowed in self pity yet Jane decided to raise awareness of terminal illness sufferers and to make a point that one should always live life to the full. During the 7 years from first learning she was terminally ill until she passed away (a period much longer than any specialist predicted), she ran many marathons and competed in many stamina events such as triathlons. In the process raising well over a million pounds (two million dollars) for cancer charities and people with terminal illnesses.
Such was the physical and mental strength of Jane several tabloid newspapers actually put private detectives on her after suggestions she was faking her illness. At the end of the day everybody can learn many things from this remarkable lady...
1) Live life to the full (sadly hardly any of us will)
2) Give something to people less fortunate than ourselves.
3) We all have an inner strength that we can tap into if we require it.
Basically in relation to your average poker player this can be translated to not dedicating all of your time to playing poker no matter how much you are winning, when times are bad dig deep and fight you way back out of it. I dont agree with most charities as so much money is wasted on administration fees yet such is the profile of Jane's charity I doubt too many people would be brave enough to charge too much in fees.
http://www.janesappeal.com/ is where direct donations can be made, i doubt that a single person alive today won't be affected by cancer or someone close having cancer in their lifetime. At the end of this month I shall personally make a donation, I would do so now but would rather give a % of my winnings this month....although even if i run at a loss I shall still make a donation.
So every poker player remember strength/determination and dedication and never lose sight of what is important to you.
(The threedom pass farce shall be posted tomorrow 95%)
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Off with a bang....
After a slight technical problem we are off and running again, starting with the betfair STAX scam...
7 pm says goodbye to Betfair.... September has just started and it is time for me to kill my Betfair account. I played the months of February, March, April, May and August. Those five months i made approximately £50,000 and entry to the world series main event worth an additional £5000. The money i was making was good but I just couldn't no longer put up with being cheated. It is both easy and yet difficult at the same time to take the decision to play Betfair no longer. Betfair does have a great community of players, I can think of 20 just off the top of my head. Actually I will name a few now and obviously more than I name i will forget off the tip of my tongue. Many are not friends of mine, and i don't even speak to a lot of them yet they are all part of the great community that is Betfair poker. (let me add that many of this community are absolutely rubbish at poker, yet very few do make a decent profit from poker. just because someone is a losing player it doesn't mean they don't have a positive affect on the poker community in general). Well just naming a few people from this betfair community off the top of my head i name in no particular order, doobs, dubai, mandylou, zelda, gatsby, ariston, shaa, kpnuts, dealem, poker queen (yes i know she is a bitch but nethertheless is an integral part of this community), duffs, smartmoney, highstack, soap, reactive, and i cant be assed to keep on naming them!
My main gripe is the constant attacks from a small minority of the staff, this year i have had two chat bans. I often play over 100 games a day so games played divided by complaints i am nowhere near as guilty as most, however maybe people will disagree. Here is my first chat ban on betfair poker....
A player called Fastfoot is playing somebody called Ontheup daily, I notice that any game over $150 which is on the las vegas leaderboard is won by ontheup, any game under $150 is won by fastfoot. No games last past level one. It is clear that the leaderboard is being manipulated, this is reported to betfair who say nothing can be proved. I mean what are the odds of somebody winning around 20/20 games at $150 or below versus the same player yet losing 8/8 at the higher stake. So in a game with fastfoot i call him cheating scum, betfair email me saying you have a life chat ban etc etc. Calling someone cheating scum is a lifetime ban? My chat is reinstated at a later date and then this month AGAIN i am given a chat ban for life... obviously i am a bit puzzled so i ask for the conversation and i am emailed this...
11:01:44 7 pm says : 7 pm: f urself
10:59:28 7 pm says : 7 pm: wtf
10:59:30 7 pm says : 7 pm: f o
Now this is part of an edited conversation, whereby the other player Hangboot issues veiled threats that he can find me, knows who I am etc and calls me by my full name. Now if someone can get a chat ban for the above i am baffled, however it was part of the bigger picture, the STAX SCAM.
Betfair ran a promotion called STAX with a first prize of $23000. Midway through I realised i wasn't going to be allowed to win, the exact reasons I still cant be sure of. But basically I believe it to be a criminal action by Betfair. I was top for around 25 of the first 26 days yet realised from around day 15 that I was going to be cheated out of first. This is clearly not sour grapes as i realised when i was top and way ahead of other people. I had won $100 from someone on heads up micro stakes who was going all in every hand, i had called behind on several of the hands and got lucky. My account was locked and my leading score on STAX taken down, betfair vip called the next day and said there was an error and reactivated my account. However I wasn't on the stax leaderboard, they assured me I would be back on their the next day. On the normal leaderboards i had 60000 points on low stakes cash. The next day i was back on stax and all my cash points had disappeared! This was when I knew it wasn't meant for me. So i am a million miles clear and out of nowhere a player called smokeysi steams up the leaderboard in two days, i watch him and he is clearly endlessly dumping on cash tables. I have a better stt and mtt score yet he goes above me as he has just a cash score better than mine. I complain to betfair and they say nothing is amiss, then over ten people say on the betfair forum that they have seen him cash dumping so betfair finally throw him out. So thats twice that I have been affected by dirty deeds, then in the last few days all hell broke loose. New leaders by the day, knowing that if my stt and mtt score were better than someone who had a cash score they would be top i got to work on my cash score. The second last day here is the top of the leaderboard....
1 fuzzard 1375 1550 1875 99.8
2 7 pm 1150 2250 1525 99.77
3 Tesa 500 1500 1525 93.32
4 EnAnNi 1050 1550 1000 92.4
5 Wingding2 1025 1250 1375 91.47
Then on the final day....
1 Wingding2 1025 1500 1875 99.79
2 fuzzard 1375 1525 1750 99.77
3 7 pm 1250 2250 1525 99.74
4 EnAnNi 1600 1550 1000 99.41
5 Tesa 500 1500 1525 93.32
I have scored more points by far than anyone else yet am not top, the person who gets first than me is behind in stt and cash yet ahead on mtt.... wait two weeks ago i was ahead on stt and mtt and someone ahead on cash was given top spot! Add to this the fact that some days peoples scores went up and overall score went down. Now betfair said this in the terms and conditions...
The formula for STAX#RATINGS™ is confidential and Betfair will not enter into discussions regarding how this is calculated.
Fair enough you don't wish to say how you work the scores out, yet after the promotion is over and so many people query the results surely for peace of mind there is nothing to lose in revealing it? Its not as if stax will ever be used again, but no betfair wont reveal the formulas as 7 pm has clearly been robbed. I will have nothing to do with betfair again. If this is how they treat a player who rakes £10000 a month good luck to them. I have bubbled for slightly more than $23000 in the past yet its different coming second than coming first and been given second. Betfair would definitely reveal a formula rather than lose hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in custom unless there was no formula to reveal. I fully expect that withing two weeks a formula will be worked out to show how wingding could have scored way less points yet still be top. I shall continue to avoid contact with Betfair and play elsewhere. I will not accept any bribes or sweeteners neither. Note one day after the promotion is over the auto-updates are on and someone goes top with less points but a better cash score than wingding!...
1 EnAnNi 1650 1550 1000 99.83
2 Wingding2 1025 1500 1875 99.78
Wingding2 has benefited from the scam but in no way at all is he to blame and i hope he does get a good finish in the WSOPE. Betfair however have lost over 6 figures sterling from me alone a year and whatever they lose from people I know not playing there anymore. Surely revealing the scoring system after the event wouldn't have been that hard? I have been informed by Fuzzard that he has also lodged an official complaint, exactly on what grounds I don't know.
Good luck to all who continue to play at betfair and remember no matter how much you rake you can get turned over. Always read rules of any competion you enter. My chat ban was given just to silence me as i was questioning stax to other players even though i was top. If you think you can get chat ban for saying wtf fo good luck to you! O yea, also Betfair ran tournaments over the weekend whereby some players started with more chips than others. How can this be possible, the software is set and works fine for thousands of games then suddenly it freaks out. Well the software is written and cannot go wrong unless it is manually altered, hackers have possibly gotten into betfair and messed around with the program. However betfair could not admit to this as share price and customer confidence would go down. There are several more betfair stories that I have but probably wont mention as at the end of the day many great staff still work there, it isn't fair on the likes of ruru, estelle and others to be tarred with the same brush as the corrupt few. Time will tell what I reveal, however 7 pm is definitely dead on Betfair.
Tomorrow I shall reveal the threedom pass lies also a case of more lies by Betfair Poker
7 pm says goodbye to Betfair.... September has just started and it is time for me to kill my Betfair account. I played the months of February, March, April, May and August. Those five months i made approximately £50,000 and entry to the world series main event worth an additional £5000. The money i was making was good but I just couldn't no longer put up with being cheated. It is both easy and yet difficult at the same time to take the decision to play Betfair no longer. Betfair does have a great community of players, I can think of 20 just off the top of my head. Actually I will name a few now and obviously more than I name i will forget off the tip of my tongue. Many are not friends of mine, and i don't even speak to a lot of them yet they are all part of the great community that is Betfair poker. (let me add that many of this community are absolutely rubbish at poker, yet very few do make a decent profit from poker. just because someone is a losing player it doesn't mean they don't have a positive affect on the poker community in general). Well just naming a few people from this betfair community off the top of my head i name in no particular order, doobs, dubai, mandylou, zelda, gatsby, ariston, shaa, kpnuts, dealem, poker queen (yes i know she is a bitch but nethertheless is an integral part of this community), duffs, smartmoney, highstack, soap, reactive, and i cant be assed to keep on naming them!
My main gripe is the constant attacks from a small minority of the staff, this year i have had two chat bans. I often play over 100 games a day so games played divided by complaints i am nowhere near as guilty as most, however maybe people will disagree. Here is my first chat ban on betfair poker....
A player called Fastfoot is playing somebody called Ontheup daily, I notice that any game over $150 which is on the las vegas leaderboard is won by ontheup, any game under $150 is won by fastfoot. No games last past level one. It is clear that the leaderboard is being manipulated, this is reported to betfair who say nothing can be proved. I mean what are the odds of somebody winning around 20/20 games at $150 or below versus the same player yet losing 8/8 at the higher stake. So in a game with fastfoot i call him cheating scum, betfair email me saying you have a life chat ban etc etc. Calling someone cheating scum is a lifetime ban? My chat is reinstated at a later date and then this month AGAIN i am given a chat ban for life... obviously i am a bit puzzled so i ask for the conversation and i am emailed this...
11:01:44 7 pm says : 7 pm: f urself
10:59:28 7 pm says : 7 pm: wtf
10:59:30 7 pm says : 7 pm: f o
Now this is part of an edited conversation, whereby the other player Hangboot issues veiled threats that he can find me, knows who I am etc and calls me by my full name. Now if someone can get a chat ban for the above i am baffled, however it was part of the bigger picture, the STAX SCAM.
Betfair ran a promotion called STAX with a first prize of $23000. Midway through I realised i wasn't going to be allowed to win, the exact reasons I still cant be sure of. But basically I believe it to be a criminal action by Betfair. I was top for around 25 of the first 26 days yet realised from around day 15 that I was going to be cheated out of first. This is clearly not sour grapes as i realised when i was top and way ahead of other people. I had won $100 from someone on heads up micro stakes who was going all in every hand, i had called behind on several of the hands and got lucky. My account was locked and my leading score on STAX taken down, betfair vip called the next day and said there was an error and reactivated my account. However I wasn't on the stax leaderboard, they assured me I would be back on their the next day. On the normal leaderboards i had 60000 points on low stakes cash. The next day i was back on stax and all my cash points had disappeared! This was when I knew it wasn't meant for me. So i am a million miles clear and out of nowhere a player called smokeysi steams up the leaderboard in two days, i watch him and he is clearly endlessly dumping on cash tables. I have a better stt and mtt score yet he goes above me as he has just a cash score better than mine. I complain to betfair and they say nothing is amiss, then over ten people say on the betfair forum that they have seen him cash dumping so betfair finally throw him out. So thats twice that I have been affected by dirty deeds, then in the last few days all hell broke loose. New leaders by the day, knowing that if my stt and mtt score were better than someone who had a cash score they would be top i got to work on my cash score. The second last day here is the top of the leaderboard....
1 fuzzard 1375 1550 1875 99.8
2 7 pm 1150 2250 1525 99.77
3 Tesa 500 1500 1525 93.32
4 EnAnNi 1050 1550 1000 92.4
5 Wingding2 1025 1250 1375 91.47
Then on the final day....
1 Wingding2 1025 1500 1875 99.79
2 fuzzard 1375 1525 1750 99.77
3 7 pm 1250 2250 1525 99.74
4 EnAnNi 1600 1550 1000 99.41
5 Tesa 500 1500 1525 93.32
I have scored more points by far than anyone else yet am not top, the person who gets first than me is behind in stt and cash yet ahead on mtt.... wait two weeks ago i was ahead on stt and mtt and someone ahead on cash was given top spot! Add to this the fact that some days peoples scores went up and overall score went down. Now betfair said this in the terms and conditions...
The formula for STAX#RATINGS™ is confidential and Betfair will not enter into discussions regarding how this is calculated.
Fair enough you don't wish to say how you work the scores out, yet after the promotion is over and so many people query the results surely for peace of mind there is nothing to lose in revealing it? Its not as if stax will ever be used again, but no betfair wont reveal the formulas as 7 pm has clearly been robbed. I will have nothing to do with betfair again. If this is how they treat a player who rakes £10000 a month good luck to them. I have bubbled for slightly more than $23000 in the past yet its different coming second than coming first and been given second. Betfair would definitely reveal a formula rather than lose hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in custom unless there was no formula to reveal. I fully expect that withing two weeks a formula will be worked out to show how wingding could have scored way less points yet still be top. I shall continue to avoid contact with Betfair and play elsewhere. I will not accept any bribes or sweeteners neither. Note one day after the promotion is over the auto-updates are on and someone goes top with less points but a better cash score than wingding!...
1 EnAnNi 1650 1550 1000 99.83
2 Wingding2 1025 1500 1875 99.78
Wingding2 has benefited from the scam but in no way at all is he to blame and i hope he does get a good finish in the WSOPE. Betfair however have lost over 6 figures sterling from me alone a year and whatever they lose from people I know not playing there anymore. Surely revealing the scoring system after the event wouldn't have been that hard? I have been informed by Fuzzard that he has also lodged an official complaint, exactly on what grounds I don't know.
Good luck to all who continue to play at betfair and remember no matter how much you rake you can get turned over. Always read rules of any competion you enter. My chat ban was given just to silence me as i was questioning stax to other players even though i was top. If you think you can get chat ban for saying wtf fo good luck to you! O yea, also Betfair ran tournaments over the weekend whereby some players started with more chips than others. How can this be possible, the software is set and works fine for thousands of games then suddenly it freaks out. Well the software is written and cannot go wrong unless it is manually altered, hackers have possibly gotten into betfair and messed around with the program. However betfair could not admit to this as share price and customer confidence would go down. There are several more betfair stories that I have but probably wont mention as at the end of the day many great staff still work there, it isn't fair on the likes of ruru, estelle and others to be tarred with the same brush as the corrupt few. Time will tell what I reveal, however 7 pm is definitely dead on Betfair.
Tomorrow I shall reveal the threedom pass lies also a case of more lies by Betfair Poker
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