Texas Calculatem and Poker Office Blog

Just to let you know, we like to pretend we're fish at the tables to demonstrate weakness.

Toonpoker1 is very weak. Will only bet the minimum. His pre-flop raise must indicate something like QQ.

Juice and myself tried a low limit speed table at Ladbrokes Poker last night. Speed tables allow players only 10 seconds to make their moves.

It was loose and furious, frequently with over 5 players seeing the flop. There was also a maniac called Keba who'd raise with anything and cap each street with no pair and no draws. However, playing such a poor player was a little disheartening, as

1 - it's nice to think that the fish are getting entertainment value for the liquidity that we provide
2 - someone who loses so badly is less likely to come back
3 - there aren't enough players like that.

Anyway, I think these (new?) Ladbrokes Poker speed tables could be the way forward as;

- the "speed" factor will encourage impatient players who'll make mistakes
- the low thinking time will cause less experienced players to make mistakes


CLICK HERE TO GO FISHING AT LADBROKES POKER

Just got back from Budapest. Here are some quick notes...

Have been using manual reads at Pacific. Juice is not please as I've been discussing notes in the chat window, even though it's manual and means that the other players are unlikely to be reading it. Against some opponents I knew I had them beat, in the face of unfounded aggression, but failed to cap the betting (limit poker) against them due to lack of guts. Doh.

PA2021 - calls pre-flop with almost anything. Will raise strong hands.

paddysim

Aggressive with very weak hands.
Will raise with top pair even if he has the worse kicker

Judge 329

3-bet pre-flop with K8s. Hit mid pair and 3-bet the flop. I should have been more aggressive against him.

A mysterious kitten from Istanbul has entered the fray. Click here to view the entrants. Cast your vote by leaving a comment.

It appears that my IT skills have let me down again as no one can use the new voting form.

If you'd like to cast a vote please just leave a comment at the bottom of the doggy post. I'll leave the poll open until the New Year.

There's yet another Poker Room called PokerTime. I haven't signed up yet, but it looks like they're giving $10 to new players. It could therefore be a good future venue for our mini blogger tournies as Acorn can't deposit at Royal Vegas, and Juice and myself are too lazy to open and deposit at Poker Stars.

The only problem with Poker Time could be a lack of players. The last Poker room I tried was Pokeround. That had about 10 players on the whole site. Juice tried WPTOnline and suffered a similar problem.

But having said that, if we all start there with the $10 starting bonus, it could be a good way for us to compare skills on a more level playing field.

At Juice's advice, I've been reading http://www.pokertips.org/.

It gives some basic advice on what size to bet at NL, but the bit that I'd like to try out is Omaha Hi.

The fish are not flocking to me at Pacific Poker, and I guess my memories may have been tainted as I originally played Omaha Hi there, after accidently sitting down at the wrong table.

Anyway, Juice is not interested in learning Omaha Hi, but I was wondering if any of you other guys are interested in trying out a microlimit game (5c/10c) at some point in the future?

The Acorn and Juice are shooting ahead and leaving me behind. I'd really like to catch up but don't have the skills and will be too busy in the next few weeks. This weekend I'm off to Budapest and after that will be moving to Balham where I'm keen to try out Mr Acorn's recommended Bubble and Squeek.

Moving onto more positive stuff I have another potential bit of free money for my loyal readers. (888.com's Casino on Net are offering new clients a 100% bonus up to $200. However, they must wager the $200 welcome bonus 20 times over before making any withdrawals. Using the Simple Jacks or Better Strategy players can expect a 99.46% payout.

Doing the sums...

A player can deposit $200 and get $200.
In order to complete to complete the 20 times wager requirement the player must wager $200x20=$4,000.
Assuming an expected 99.46% payout the player can expect to achive a return of $3978.40. i.e. They expect to lise $21.60.
Therefore someone doing the offer can expect to profit buy $200-$21.60 = $178.40.

This offer should therefore be profitable.

However, before doing this please note a few things.

- My sums do not account for volatility in returns. If your balance fluctuates to zero or below you've lost. You can reduce the volatility by reducing your bet size.
- You could be unlucky and lose anyway.
- My sums could be wrong.
- Players should check that they play games that are eligible for completing the 20 times wager requirement. Blackjack and Roulette do not comply. Players should check the terms and conditions for themselves before starting.

Other than my disclaimer above (I'd feel very bad if someone did this and lost) I'd like to wish you all good luck. I already have an account with them and can't do it. The last casino bonus that I did was the 7Sultans 15 minutes free session. I think about 3 of us did it. 2 came out with nothing (but didn't lose either) but the Juice won about $300.

Click here to take advantage of the offer.

The last form didn't work as I don't know how to set up Drupal. I've therefore moved the poll to the forum. It expires on 21st December.

Click Here to view or participate in the doggy poll.

At Juice's request, here is my latest BR:



The profits are from limit at Ladbrokes, though I'm playing at Pacific Poker with Juice at time of writing.

I'd like to say a special thanks to Rosie_m for leaving the hand remedy. I can't try it while at home (as my mother's a nurse) but will give it a go when if it isn't fixed by the time I move into Balham next month. But is the recipe of eating or external application?

Anyway, it's too cold to type. I'm freezing!

Hey,

If any of you know anything about skin diseases please look at this. I probably won't get to see my doc till Wednesday and it's damn itchy.

Cheers,

The Edge.

I feel most upset that none of my regular readers have voted for their favourite dog. After all Juice's objections to Canyon I would have though he'd be the first to cast a vote.

Anyway, tonight the game shall be Limit Poker at Pacific Poker, from 8.30pm onwards. Neither Texas Calculatem nor Poker Office work there so I may need to concentrate more.

I need to keep my vow to never play NL ring games anymore. I should concentrate on the game I know and can beat.

At the moment there are 4 candidates to replace Canyon as my official blog mascot.

Click here to cast your vote.

Turkish Kitten


Nacho


Bernard


Charlie


Toby


Click here to cast your vote.

Poker is not going well. Did more NL last night and lost my $10 buyin. I really should just stick to the limit tables where I atleast have a consistent record. But as I've already said, I've gotten into a habit of just sitting wherever Juice happens to be.

Google banned my Texas Calculatem campaign. Despite their terms and conditions stating

"Advertising is not permitted for online casinos, sports books, bingo, and affiliates with the primary purpose of driving traffic to online gambling sites."

and the fact that my blog doesn't fit there, they decided to ban me anyway. On top of that they didn't bother answering my other queries. Am not happy, but I guess the support staffs' performance is measured based on how many queries they respond to rather than quality of response (which is virtually impossible to measure), so I did the only thing possible and followed the feedback link in their response email. I doubt it'll get me anywhere. Very frustrating. They're almost as bad as NTL who are a load of shite. If you ever have to call NTL and get picked up by their Indian call centre just demand to be put through to Ireland. The NTL guys from India are nothing but a bunch of time wasters.

So my only other alternative is to try to do make websites that are non-gambling related. Not sure how that fits in with this blog, but it's mine so I can say what I want. In terms of content my next site(s) will contain a variety of focused articles containing PPC ads or selling affiliate products. If any of you have any recommendations on non-gambling stuff I can try to flog please let me know. A content management system will be required to manage the large number of pages I'll be hosting. Have managed to install Drupal at http://drupal.financialcharting.com/ (username juice, password juice) for test purposes and it looks OK. I guess the next step is to work out what I want to put there.

Have also tried that wikimedia thing at this place. It is a nice idea but lacks content control. Also, the discuss feature is open to total abuse. The originial Wikipedia also suffers from excessive pretensiousness with many authers/moderators/whatever you call them believing that they are the guardians of all knowledge. I wouldn't want to encourage such behaviour.

This is a St Bernard dog that Juice saw in a car park. How cute!

Got home late last night after a friend cooked me a steak and ale pie in Putney (well, she put it in the oven). Got to hear tales of climbing corporate ladders and rising career paths. But I doubt any of you readers really care or you wouldn't be playing Poker. Why do overtime and lick arse for a shitty £2k bonus when you can lick less arse and make it off your own efforts, instead of relying on the lucky dip that are corporate handouts?

Anyway, I haven't quite worked out how to make £2k off my own efforts, so let's move on to discussing the efforts at the coal face...

Paddy Power gave me £42 this month. Instead of playing proper Poker I did Video Poker. The luck of the Irish always strikes me at Paddy Power and I almost always win (have only lost once). Though their stupid Player Protection system meant that I had to wait a week between doing the first set of bets and the second set, as I accidently set my wagering limit to £0.00. Doh.

I need to spend less time at the Poker tables. I'm not making any money, though I keep coming back primarily for the banter value. Therefore I'm going to try Project Entropia this weekend. The fact that people are spending real money on virtual real estate intrigues me (some guy spent $100,000 on a virtual space station), though I'm not convinced that it's a better investment than blowing the lot on crack whores.

Little Acorn Man has kindly submitted his doggy, Nacho, as a candidate for our new mascot. So we currently can choose between:

- Nacho
- Charles
- Canyon (sand cat)

Despite trying to cut down on the Poker I found myself facinn Juice on a NL table at Laddies. He somehow managed to induce me to fold top pair by betting hard with mid pair/flush draw. Very annoying.

But we managed to get a chat going with the Acornman and it was good fun.

Something is wrong. I've started losing at Poker again! Where is the love?

Canyon doesn't seem to be giving us luck either. Maybe his 9 lives have run out. We need a new mascot for this blog. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Poker Gossip:

Poor Rosie_m has an ear ache so we must wish her well if we see her.

Tripjax has just informed me that he likes to drop the hammer (for all you new readers, that's 72o).

Juice's bankroll is bleeding and we should encourage him to concentrate on his interview.

I didn't participate in the blogger tourney last night due to a lack of funds and a lack of motivation to fill in the forms required to create a new account. However, I watched it for an hour, as the blinds at Pacific Poker ground away my bankroll. Perhaps I should concentrate on the table when I play Poker.

Anyway, I was mainly there to give acorn some moral support. He didn't really hit any cards and finished around 5th. When I left it was Dave (do you have a blog) heads up against Tripjax (kept on raising JJ pre-flop, trying to hit his trip jacks, but everyone folded to him as the scent of fermenting magic was too strong). Who won in the end? I don't know as I wanted to watch that Rome programme about Roman's killing the French and each other. The scenes flitted around a lot and I found it difficult to feel excited about any of it.

The fish are nibbling at Pacific Poker and I'm down $11.07 since depositing there. It's not quite as easy as I thought it would be and either my game isn't adjusting, I'm not hitting the cards, or I'm just crap. Neither Texac Calculatem nor Poker Office work at Pacific Poker either, so I find it hard to differentiate between the fish and sharks.

Problems with my play could be...

- I'm too loose pre-flop. There's no Texas Calculatem to tell me to fold marginal hands.
- I don't have Poker Office spotting the fish.
- I haven't been able to use aggression to force opponents off pots. So I should tighten up and wait for the cards before making a move.

We need to encourage Juice to stay away from the tables this week. He has a big job interview with a big city firm in the big city on Thursday. If he gets the job he'll be down the road from me. So I'll be able to supplement my trading losses by playing heads up against the Juice during our lunch breaks.

I now know what Acorn means when he describes the rush of NL. But I'm not sure if I like it too much as I try to keep my heart beating at a more constant pace.

Basically I was at a NL table and have so far taken my buyin from $10 to $33. I guess I've had good luck, and shall post some of my more questionable plays below:

---

I have KK at UTG+2. Raise 4SB. SB and UTG call.

The flop comes 893 rainbow. 13 SB in the pot.

SB bets 5SB. UTG calls. So I have 5SB to call. 4.6:1 pot odds. But the problem is that I don't know if I'm ahead or behind. Calling is definitely wrong as I only have 2 outs. I must therefore fold or raise. Shitting a load of bricks I raise another 5SB.

SB folds!!!!!! UTG calls. I'm pretty scared at that point so we just check until the river. Upon which I win.

---

A9 suited on the button. 5 players see an unraised flop.

The flop comes Ac8d5d. So I have top pair and a nut flush draw. The play is checked round to me. I have a strong hand and draw to the nuts. So I bet the pot and everyone folds. Is that optimal play?

---

Finally, there was a hand where I was calling all the way to the river chasing a straight draw. When I hit my straight on the river I bet a third of the pot. Hoping someone would call. They all folded. The guy who'd been betting everystreet was just after me. Should I have checked, hoping for him to bet and doing a check-raise?


CLICK HERE TO GO FISHING AT LADBROKES POKER

It looks like Sharks1 is a piranha!

Danny_Ace is a rock. So it wouldn't be good to go up against him unless you had something.

GaryC and a few others have been asking for contact details. So I've set myself up with a Yahoo Messenger account. Hopefully I won't get spam and stuff like that.

Yahoo ID: the_unbeatable_edge
Yahoo Group: click here

I'm neither up nor down at Pacific Poker. The fish are there and their starting hand requirements are notably lower than those at Ladbrokes Poker.

My favourite fish has to be Domoni53, who seems to call with pretty much anything. But when your QQ gets beaten by K3o it can get a little frustrating.

Despite the poor chat facilities I got chatting to a player caller CHARZAR. Maybe I'll meet him in the future.

Rumour mill suggests that Sunday tourney may be $10! That's too rich for my blood!

I've created a Yahoo Group to try and encourage some blogger chat. Click here to view/apply. It could be good for chat sessions when we have problems logging onto various Poker rooms. But I don't want to use the posting facility as all content should really go on our blogs. There is a calendar option which could be useful for our Sunday tournies though.

Juice and myself had our first session at Pacific Poker. Alas it wasn't the sushi bar that I expected though the fish were apparent. I was marginally above breakeven on the introductory 5c/10c session. I'm going to force myself to win $10 at 5c/10c before stepping up in order to acclimatise myself to the poor software and type of player.

A serious problem at Pacific Poker is the waiting times. It takes about 15 minutes to get a seat. I don't know why they don't just open more tables.

Onto future plans a new poker room is opening next month, and like Royal Vegas and Crazy Peaks, they'll be giving new players $10 free for opening up a new account. I think they're called Poker Towers but have no more information at the moment. All these Poker rooms make it hard to decided where's best to play. I still haven't taken the free $10 from Crazy Peaks, nor have I tried out WPTOnline which is supposed to be full of fish. I suppose Juice and myself are nicely settled at Ladbrokes but the lack of players is becoming depresssing.

This Sunday there's another UK V US tourney. But I have a feeling the buyin will be $25. If that's the case I'll have to sit out. My bankroll can't take the punishment!

I believe that I may have finally reached the gates of Heaven - Pacific Poker.

Ladbrokes has been quiet lately. With few players and tight tables that are hard to take money from. I therefore took a look at the fishfest that is Pacific Poker. Comparing the $0.50/$1.00 limit tables (see screenshot above) reveals some glaring differences.

- Pacific Poker has loads of full tables (those shown n the screenshot only represent about a quarter of those available)
- The Players per Flop percentages (at the full 10 player tables) at Pacific Poker are all higher than the comparative statistic at Ladbrokes' lone 10 player table.
- The average pot sizes at Pacific Poker are all higher than at Ladbrokes.

Conclusion: Pacific Poker has many more players than Ladbrokes Poker. Players at Pacific Poker also happen to be looser and willing to put more money into the pot.

I'm therefore keen to give Pacific Poker another try, despite my hatred of their poor software and lack of multi-table support. However, Juice appears to be hiding, and I'm too scared to venture into that unfamiliar environment on my own so I'll have to dip my toes in later. I've deposited $50 with Pacific Poker (via neteller) to finance this experiment and also collected a 25% first deposit bonus.

Please click here if you'd like to join for some fishing at Pacific Poker.

I'm taking a short break from the Poker. Tomorrow Juice and myself might make an appearance at Pacific Poker to scout out the fish. My plan will be to sit at the micro-limit 5c/10c limit tables and let Texas Calculatem do its stuff. If there really are 10 players seeing the flop then I should rake it in. I'll try to get some Poker Office screenshots as well. I keep forgetting to take them.

This evening I've done Jacks or Better Video Poker at Paddy Poker and Vegas Strip Blackjack at Ladbrokes Casino.

I won £26 at Paddy Power and they're going to give me £25 as part of their monthly bonus. I love the Irish!

I won £15 after a few hands at Ladbrokes Casino and decided to call it quits while I was ahead.

So that's £41 I've made tonight. Which is about $72. A LOT more than I made from my pitiful Poker last month.

Good night,

The Edge.