2011 ROUNDUP

Online poker: +£315 (-131):  CC game: +£157 (-11): APAT: +£200 (-)

Matched betting this month = +£112;  This year = +£1462

Profit on Month = -£30    Profit on Year = +£2132

It is interesting to look back at the targets I set in the review blog at the end of last year and consider them in the light of events subsequently.  I have totally changed my thinking since they were written. 

Basically I am playing an awful lot less than I used to on-line, mainly because I have absolutely no desire to "grind" my way to winning money at poker.  I'd rather just keep it recreational, so I just play the odd tournament or sng when the spirit moves me.  I imagine that is how I will carry on now.

Highlight of the poker year has to be captaining the team from Edgworth Cricket Club that won the APAT UK Pub Poker Championship back in June or so.  That was really good fun. 

I enjoy the APAT tourneys and will certainly be having a bash at anything within reach next year.  I wouldn't mind playing in some other "bricks and mortar" games if I can find something suitable.  The best one I've found is a Sunday afternoon tournament at the G in Manchester, but I often have other commitments on Sunday afternoons, so I've only been a couple of times.

Matched betting has been a "steady earner" all year and I've easily made most of my profits from that.  More of that will definitely be called for.

I'm not sure - given the limited amount of poker I am playing - whether I'll carry on with this blog - time will tell.

THE JOY OF SPREADS

Online poker: +£446 (+121):  CC game: +£168 (+27): APAT: +£200 (-)

Matched betting this month = +£272;  This year = +£1350

Profit on Month = +£420    Profit on Year = +£2162

I'm still moving along nicely on the $15 x 18 man sit and goes on Stars.  The usual variance of course but Sharkscope has me on 17% roi on there now and I'm actually better than that as those stats will be including games I played on Stars before my recent return there.  So - happy with that.

I have hardly played a tournament.  Certainly the only memorable one was an APAT $50 entry jobbie which crashed and burned in a horrible fashion.  At 50/100 and with a full stack I 3x raised in mid position with QJ clubs.  2 callers.  Flop comes QQJ 2 hearts!  BINGO I thought.  Guy bets into me.  I call.  The other guy folds.  Turn comes a blank.  Half pot bet into me and I call.  River is 9 of hearts.  Great I'm thinking.  If he has Ax Hearts I'm going to clean him out.  Half pot bet into me.  I go all in.  He calls and has K10 hearts of course for the straight flush.  That's the second hammering from a rivered straight flush I've had this year.  It's about time one of them came my way.

Meanwhile with the matched betting I've been working my way through the spread betting sites, which has gone nicely for around £250 profit.  With a bit of study some of these spread markets look to be "arbable" as well, so I'm going to leave my money in the sites and have a look at that one.  Happy days.

...AND SOME MORE STEADY PROGRESS

Online poker: +£315 (+173):  CC game: +£141 (+43): APAT: +£200 (-)

Matched betting this month = +£211;  This year = +£1078

Profit on Month = +£427    Profit on Year = +£1746

Poker has progressed very nicely this month with the 18 man sng's on Stars a particular highlight.  I've been slaughtering these games this month at a rate I know will be impossible to maintain.  Enjoy it while you can before the inevitable variance monster bites, I suppose.  The big bonus for me has come in the heads up part.  I've had 6 heads up scenarios and won 5 of them.  The minute I have an opponent who does something like fold on the button, I know I have a very good chance of a winning outcome :-)

I've also returned to quietly cashing regularly again in the cricket club game.  I've got a read on the new loose/aggressive players in particular and I'm really making it count by picking them off at the right moment.

Matched betting has also been fun, with a poker mate who is also an experience matched bettor, helping me work my way through the spread betting sites with referrals and advice.  I made some money on a recent Barcelona v Levante game which had an interesting outcome.  With a £100 "free bet", I had "sold supremacy" on Barca and laid off the other outcomes for a nice £60 profit whatever happened.  However, the game itself finished 0 - 0 with 8 yellow and 2 red cards!  If anyone had been on the spread for "sell cards" for that game it would have cost them a fortune.  It just goes to show -

DON'T GAMBLE folks!

I've given up trying to explain matched betting to friends.  They just don't "get it" and think that I'm an unreconstructed gambler, which of course couldn't be further from the truth.  What I am doing is taking the gambling out of it!  However, as with poker, to the uninitiated it just seems like punting.  Anyway it keeps me entertained on wet Saturday afternoons and I'm building up a nice "Christmas Bonus" for my daughters.  :-)

QUIET PROGRESS

Online poker: +£142 (-27):  CC game: +£98 (+37): APAT: +£200 (-)

Matched betting this month = +£112;  This year = +£867

Profit on Month = +£122    Profit on Year = +£1317

Back to work again and poker is inevitably taking a bit of a back seat.  I'm mainly playing a few $15 18 man sng's on Stars at the moment and that is going nicely.  The minus in the on-line poker return is due to a bad trot on the $11 tournaments on 888.  These are soft enough, but a run of bad beats has knocked me back a bit there - inevitable in these this sort of thing.

My one cash in these did come about as a result of a pretty amazing piece of luck going my way.  I was short stacked on the bubble and caught AT suited in early position.  All in of course. 

Two all in callers behind.  This didn't sound like good news and it wasn't looking too clever when they revealed AA and KK.  The flop came QQQ. 

Hum, I thought, I have a one outer to a split pot!  Turn Q...Boom! 

Matched betting continues to boost the bankroll nicely.  I've lined up some referrals to work my way through the spread firms next. 

My next live outing won't be to poker, but to the European Diplomacy Championships, which are being held in Derby in November.  Should be good craic meeting up from old adversaries from the Dip world and the odd game of poker is also mooted.

Doing a bit of thinking :-)

Online poker: +£169 (+153):  CC game: +£61 (+7): APAT: +£200 (-106)

Matched betting this month = +£127;  This year = +£755

Profit on Month = +£181    Profit on Year = +£1,195

Online things have gone nicely enough this month.  I had a good final table finish in one of my regular 888 tourneys which bumped me up there and the 18 man sit and goes I've been playing on stars after any early tourney exits have been going really nicely.  I've been working on my final table technique there and the results have been very positive. 

The matched betting with my roll continues to be a steady earner and I've picked up lots of "start of the football season" bonuses this month.  Now for a bash at the spread sites I think.

The APAT world amateur championship at Dusk till Dawn in Nottingham was good craic, made even better by the fact that it was eventually won by Dave "No Shoes" Garden.  To be honest, he totally crushed it, following up on his recent big tournament victory against a lot of the top pros.  Well done that man.

From my perspective the APAT was very interesting, as I came away with a lot of ideas on how to improve my tournament game.  I went fairly deep (57th of the 200+ starters on day 1b) but I am now sure that I need to play with a lot more selective aggression in earlier phases of tournaments if I want to do real damage regularly.  I'm going to use the tournaments I regularly play on 888 to work out some of the ideas I've had and see if they improve my overall results over time.  I'm a profitable player doing what I do currently, but I think I can do better.  You have to have a go.  As Bob Dylan put it, "he that's not busy being born is busy dying".

Quiet times.

Online poker: +£16 (-33):  CC game: +£55 (-7): APAT: +£326 (-)

Matched betting this month = +£114;  This year = +£628

Profit on Month = +£64    Profit on Year = +£1,014

After the excitement of last month there is little or nothing to report on the poker front for July.  I've hardly played, being either too tired before the end of term, or away on holiday after it.  We finally got the trophy for the UK Pub Poker championship win which was great.

Next major feature on the poker front is the APAT world amateur championship in Nottingham at the end of August.  Should be good craic and a lot of folk I know are going.

I have had time to experiment with arbing horses using the B365 4/1 offer and a few minor horse sign ups, which is where the matched betting profit has come from. I hope I don't get gubbed there as I have actually started winning a few times after a long run of "losers".  Still - happy days and the football returns in a couple of weeks time so there should be lots more to go at then.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!!

Online poker: +£49 (+26):  CC game: +£62 (+23): APAT: +£326 (+300)

Matched betting this month = +£64;  This year = +£514

Profit on Month = +£413    Profit on Year = +£950

That couldn't have gone much better!  The APAT pub poker tourney turned out to be a total gas.

Before the tournament kicked off I stressed to everyone that the most important thing was that as many folk as possible made the "last 50", which is when the team points kicked in.  This was the main lesson I have learned from playing in previous team tournaments.  Well.  Did they listen?  Yes they most certainly did!

Come the "50 players left" point, we had 7 out of our 8 man team still in the event, which was 2 more than any other team.  As the night wore on we were steadily eliminated but we were scoring points and come the end of Saturday night we were massively ahead on "points in the bag", with 2 men still running.  Sadly, I was the last man eliminated on the Saturday, in 25th place out of the 128 starters.  (A5 suited, called by the deadly 96 suited hitting a nine - as it does).

So, with 24 left, we went into the second day with Phil (Bullmeister) in second place with a massive stack and Andy low, but not desperate.  Andy worked out that if he finished 17th or better we couldn't be beaten so he played to that and we were home and hosed by 4.00 in the afternoon.  The APAT guys told us they could never remember anyone getting 7 out of 8 players in the points in a team tournament.

Meanwhile Phil was playing an absolute blinder.  He isn't a regular tournament player, so he was finding the sheer length of the thing difficult to come to terms with, but on he battled, eventually finishing second when the winner hit a run of top hands at the heads up stage.  A great effort.

The tournament was very well managed by APAT, as usual, the only disapointment being that they had "lost" the trophy somewhere in the system.  Ah well, we can live with that.

Another entertaining feature of the weekend, was that I played a £15 rebuy on the Sunday while railing Phil and Andy and came 5th for £120.  :-)    I only took one rebuy, after I lost with AK suited hitting a flush on the river - to a straight flush.  I "got him" about an hour later.

I've only played odd games on line but a couple of minor cashes have kept me nicely in the black there too.

Matched betting saw quite a few small offers from books trying to keep the punters interested after the end of the football season, so I've mopped those up.  Next up will be horse specialist books when I have the time in the summer holidays and then the spread firms once the football is back. 

Happy Days.