So there goes another year. In true blogger fashion, here’s that 2009 review / 2010 look ahead type post.
I had a brief glance at HEM last night to see what the damage for the year was. Over all the different accounts I have and before bonuses, I won $5k. There’s a few hands missing, but (assuming I won at the same rate in them) they net off against any miscellaneous MTT’s I may have indulged in when bored. During the year I played EVERY level up to 400nl (Stars sent $5 to my unused account which I run into 4 figures), worked with a coach, opened up my game to a 23/19 style, had a bad downswing, enjoyed a heater, plugged some leaks and learned a ton.
In 2010 I just want to keep up the momentum of the last few months. Obviously I want to keep improving all aspects of my game. I also want to discipline myself to getting some volume in too – December has seen a pitiful number of sessions & hands. Eventually I want poker to provide a sturdy second income, maybe even equally my job. The long-term life aim (whether poker has any part in it, I don’t know) is to move somewhere warmer. I’d love the kids to experience different cultures as they grow up. The only downside is there aren’t many places in the world that provide free healthcare and education like we do here. Anyway, ‘plans’ have been on hold since the recession started devaluing my main asset every day. But I digress…
Tonight is new years eve so I’ll be trying to nick drunk peoples money. Happy new year to anyone reading this.
My new year has been ruined already… just found out that the snooker league have shaved a whole 4 points off my handicap. I knew a cut was coming, but was expecting something more substantial! Oh well, all good things must come to an end. Like this post.
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Snow = Profit
For some of us at least. Been working hard the last week hence no updates. Cant remember the last time I even loaded up the pokerz, been so tired (and getting in the Christmas spirit). Plenty of play to come over the next few days though as I have a whopping 5 days off. Get in there!
One last brag before Santa comes – knocked in a 69 break at snooker the other week. Sadly it was in practice and even more regrettable I missed a black trying to get up table for the colours, so 34 points went begging (a magical ton was on). We bashed up a team who are 3 divisions higher in the cup on Monday. I’m not sure how much longer I can remain under the radar with my bandit handicap.
Merry Christmas to everyone in internetland. I leave you with some Santa win.
One last brag before Santa comes – knocked in a 69 break at snooker the other week. Sadly it was in practice and even more regrettable I missed a black trying to get up table for the colours, so 34 points went begging (a magical ton was on). We bashed up a team who are 3 divisions higher in the cup on Monday. I’m not sure how much longer I can remain under the radar with my bandit handicap.
Merry Christmas to everyone in internetland. I leave you with some Santa win.
Monday, 14 December 2009
Long Boring Post (The Intro That Should Have Been)
I was doing some PC housekeeping last week and came across a few old files I had forgotten about. One was particularly interesting – it was my Betfair ‘accounts’. Let’s rewind and do a better job of an ‘intro’ post than I originally did when I started this blog.
I was always vaguely interested in gambling. I remember running random books on horse races at school. When I was 13 I took a flyer and tried to place a bet down the local greyhound stadium. I chose the oldest, blindest looking cashier and she took the bet. One thing I was never really bothered about was betting shops (and I’m still not). You may get ‘characters’ in them but they just have ‘LOSER’ written across them in my opinion. It was when I got my current job that I got into sports betting. My boss is a bit of a shrewdie and I was immediately helping him with his betting records as he wasn’t good on Excel. He can use it now, but somehow I still find myself entering his P&L figures every Monday! Anyway we’d dissect the weekends football from like Wednesday onwards and he’d tap into my knowledge of lower league hoof-ball (Couldn’t afford to go to Spurs much so watched Northampton Town a fair bit). Around this time I wanted to get a bet on an obscure snooker match. The only bookie that was offering prices was like 10 miles away. Sod that. An internet search found a better price on…. Betfair.
I remember I lost that first bet (fixed snooker matches FTL), but the concept of backing and laying was intriguing to me. And I didn’t have to move from my PC! Soon my boss was on there too. I did a bit of ‘trading’ in 2003. Getting ‘green’ on all outcomes was brilliant. I watched how the odds changed in in-running events and started grinding out small profits. It took a while for the missus to understand what I was doing. Her granddad had managed to ruin her family years before with gambling. From the start of 2004 I kept detailed records of my daily transactions to prove to her I wasn’t a degenerate gambler.
January 2004 I made £300. I have a plus or minus logged for every day bar two that month. I recall putting in a hour or two here and there just nicking small change. Football was fairly good to me. The in-running prices made for OK trading but I’d have to hog the TV all night and watch some dross. My staple diet though was the morning BAGS greyhounds meetings. These would start at like 11.20 each day. I’d get into work, have a cuppa and study the races ahead. I wouldn’t be picking winners, I’d just be getting a feel for what may or may not be fancied. There were some tracks where the Racing Post tipster was obviously bent and ‘ramping’ dogs that had no chance (probably to ensure a price on ones him and his mates fancied). After a little studying I’d get down to work and by 11am find some job which involved a lot of keyboard and mouse work. No-one could see my screen, I had an awesome ALT + TAB motion and if my boss ever saw my screen he couldn’t say much as he was often surfing the same site.
BAGS betting was a flurry of activity. There’d be a few tentative prices up and a few trades would be made 5-10 minutes before. Around 5 minutes before the off, bookmakers prices would go up at the tracks and on their sites. One way to make money would be to batter any ‘wrong’ price on betfair. If someone was asking for £100 at 2/1 for the likely favourite and it opened at 5/1, then I’d lay it for everything I could then back it back for a profit on everything. Of course I’d be competing with many others to match the price and there’d be other considerations. One would be that sometimes the bookies prices were just plain wrong (intentionally to manipulate Betfair). You had to know your track and its tendencies. On the more predictable tracks – where dogs didn’t go from 9/1 rags to 6/4 favourites – you could make a book on all 6 dogs and attempt to lay them all. I often made small daily profits and sometimes made a big one when I pounced on wrong prices or weighted a book in favour of a likely winner.
2004 looked like this:-
Jan 301.85
Feb 129.03
Mar 691.44
Apr 846.96
May 805.94
Jun 710.57
Jul 1066.97
Aug 618.69
Sep -476.82
Oct 223.64
Nov 358.07
Dec 337.75
A win of £5.6k. July was interesting as I dabbled in the World 9 Ball Pool championships. I made a smallish book on the event and as few bookies were doing prices, got to lay some absurdly low prices. In running was also lucrative as people over-reacted to one ball being potted. The same with snooker. Ronnie O’Sullivan could be 4/9 favourite for a frame, knock in a long red and go 1/7 favourite. Laying both sides in a two horse race at long odds-on is just the best feeling in the world!
2005 was even better. I could trade a load more sports well. Tennis was a banker but restricted myself to just Wimbledon. I had a bigger bankroll and could stand more exposure. The pool was brilliant again. I lucked out on getting the LOT. The event was played in Taiwan and I reasoned that no Yank would travel well and win it there and most Europeans would struggle too. I kept all the big hitting Asians on-side. I had to lay a number of the Asians too to balance the book and took a few quid against eventual winner CC Wu. IIRC I had two huge winners in the last four, one reasonable and Wu. But I made £2k on the event. Highlight was Wu playing a qualifier in one of the KO rounds. The qualifier had made a good run but wasn’t in the same class as Wu (wasn’t even on the main asian tour). He went 2-0 up and I layed a lumpy 4 figure bet on him at odds-on. Wu came through and I’d greened up to the tune of £800 both sides. Obviously I could have wiped my weeks work if that had gone wrong. I just went with my instincts and it paid off. During 2005 I made £6.9k on the exchanges. Wow. Until finding this old file I had forgotten how good it was.
By the looks of it 2005 was when I got into poker. I downloaded Betfair poker (obv) and played sit n’ gos. I have detailed records of this too. I didn’t dabble much but made £429. I have a few cash sessions ‘logged’ at this time. Most seem to be winners (was probably a bankroll nit at the time!). I recall using Gametime+ as a HUD and bloody good it was too.
2006 saw the end of my exchange days. There were numerous reasons. Firstly we moved office at work and whilst I positioned my monitor so no-one could see it, more people were liable to walk past. I cannot tell you how stressful it is when you need to close out a book which has a huge liability on the hot favourite and someone is using the fax machine behind you. The second reason was Betfair become harder. More and more people used it and there just weren’t the edges available. Greyhound books became more spot on. People had laptops at the snooker to nick the best in-running prices (and Willie Thorne still got owned!). The World Pool didn’t have in-running betting and the market was poor. I didn’t run a book on it as I’d withdrawn thousands for a car and my wedding. The final reason was I’d found a new edge. A new way to make money. Poker. Idiots just gave it away at this game. I logged some small amounts in the early part of 2006 and then stopped using my spreadsheet. I guess I had graduated to Poker Tracker. I found a 2007 screenshot of my PT stats yesterday too. It had a four figure dollar win. Not quite Betfair days, but a steady little income. 2008 up to the start of this blog has also been steady. And the rest you know. So that’s how I got here.
I was always vaguely interested in gambling. I remember running random books on horse races at school. When I was 13 I took a flyer and tried to place a bet down the local greyhound stadium. I chose the oldest, blindest looking cashier and she took the bet. One thing I was never really bothered about was betting shops (and I’m still not). You may get ‘characters’ in them but they just have ‘LOSER’ written across them in my opinion. It was when I got my current job that I got into sports betting. My boss is a bit of a shrewdie and I was immediately helping him with his betting records as he wasn’t good on Excel. He can use it now, but somehow I still find myself entering his P&L figures every Monday! Anyway we’d dissect the weekends football from like Wednesday onwards and he’d tap into my knowledge of lower league hoof-ball (Couldn’t afford to go to Spurs much so watched Northampton Town a fair bit). Around this time I wanted to get a bet on an obscure snooker match. The only bookie that was offering prices was like 10 miles away. Sod that. An internet search found a better price on…. Betfair.
I remember I lost that first bet (fixed snooker matches FTL), but the concept of backing and laying was intriguing to me. And I didn’t have to move from my PC! Soon my boss was on there too. I did a bit of ‘trading’ in 2003. Getting ‘green’ on all outcomes was brilliant. I watched how the odds changed in in-running events and started grinding out small profits. It took a while for the missus to understand what I was doing. Her granddad had managed to ruin her family years before with gambling. From the start of 2004 I kept detailed records of my daily transactions to prove to her I wasn’t a degenerate gambler.
January 2004 I made £300. I have a plus or minus logged for every day bar two that month. I recall putting in a hour or two here and there just nicking small change. Football was fairly good to me. The in-running prices made for OK trading but I’d have to hog the TV all night and watch some dross. My staple diet though was the morning BAGS greyhounds meetings. These would start at like 11.20 each day. I’d get into work, have a cuppa and study the races ahead. I wouldn’t be picking winners, I’d just be getting a feel for what may or may not be fancied. There were some tracks where the Racing Post tipster was obviously bent and ‘ramping’ dogs that had no chance (probably to ensure a price on ones him and his mates fancied). After a little studying I’d get down to work and by 11am find some job which involved a lot of keyboard and mouse work. No-one could see my screen, I had an awesome ALT + TAB motion and if my boss ever saw my screen he couldn’t say much as he was often surfing the same site.
BAGS betting was a flurry of activity. There’d be a few tentative prices up and a few trades would be made 5-10 minutes before. Around 5 minutes before the off, bookmakers prices would go up at the tracks and on their sites. One way to make money would be to batter any ‘wrong’ price on betfair. If someone was asking for £100 at 2/1 for the likely favourite and it opened at 5/1, then I’d lay it for everything I could then back it back for a profit on everything. Of course I’d be competing with many others to match the price and there’d be other considerations. One would be that sometimes the bookies prices were just plain wrong (intentionally to manipulate Betfair). You had to know your track and its tendencies. On the more predictable tracks – where dogs didn’t go from 9/1 rags to 6/4 favourites – you could make a book on all 6 dogs and attempt to lay them all. I often made small daily profits and sometimes made a big one when I pounced on wrong prices or weighted a book in favour of a likely winner.
2004 looked like this:-
Jan 301.85
Feb 129.03
Mar 691.44
Apr 846.96
May 805.94
Jun 710.57
Jul 1066.97
Aug 618.69
Sep -476.82
Oct 223.64
Nov 358.07
Dec 337.75
A win of £5.6k. July was interesting as I dabbled in the World 9 Ball Pool championships. I made a smallish book on the event and as few bookies were doing prices, got to lay some absurdly low prices. In running was also lucrative as people over-reacted to one ball being potted. The same with snooker. Ronnie O’Sullivan could be 4/9 favourite for a frame, knock in a long red and go 1/7 favourite. Laying both sides in a two horse race at long odds-on is just the best feeling in the world!
2005 was even better. I could trade a load more sports well. Tennis was a banker but restricted myself to just Wimbledon. I had a bigger bankroll and could stand more exposure. The pool was brilliant again. I lucked out on getting the LOT. The event was played in Taiwan and I reasoned that no Yank would travel well and win it there and most Europeans would struggle too. I kept all the big hitting Asians on-side. I had to lay a number of the Asians too to balance the book and took a few quid against eventual winner CC Wu. IIRC I had two huge winners in the last four, one reasonable and Wu. But I made £2k on the event. Highlight was Wu playing a qualifier in one of the KO rounds. The qualifier had made a good run but wasn’t in the same class as Wu (wasn’t even on the main asian tour). He went 2-0 up and I layed a lumpy 4 figure bet on him at odds-on. Wu came through and I’d greened up to the tune of £800 both sides. Obviously I could have wiped my weeks work if that had gone wrong. I just went with my instincts and it paid off. During 2005 I made £6.9k on the exchanges. Wow. Until finding this old file I had forgotten how good it was.
By the looks of it 2005 was when I got into poker. I downloaded Betfair poker (obv) and played sit n’ gos. I have detailed records of this too. I didn’t dabble much but made £429. I have a few cash sessions ‘logged’ at this time. Most seem to be winners (was probably a bankroll nit at the time!). I recall using Gametime+ as a HUD and bloody good it was too.
2006 saw the end of my exchange days. There were numerous reasons. Firstly we moved office at work and whilst I positioned my monitor so no-one could see it, more people were liable to walk past. I cannot tell you how stressful it is when you need to close out a book which has a huge liability on the hot favourite and someone is using the fax machine behind you. The second reason was Betfair become harder. More and more people used it and there just weren’t the edges available. Greyhound books became more spot on. People had laptops at the snooker to nick the best in-running prices (and Willie Thorne still got owned!). The World Pool didn’t have in-running betting and the market was poor. I didn’t run a book on it as I’d withdrawn thousands for a car and my wedding. The final reason was I’d found a new edge. A new way to make money. Poker. Idiots just gave it away at this game. I logged some small amounts in the early part of 2006 and then stopped using my spreadsheet. I guess I had graduated to Poker Tracker. I found a 2007 screenshot of my PT stats yesterday too. It had a four figure dollar win. Not quite Betfair days, but a steady little income. 2008 up to the start of this blog has also been steady. And the rest you know. So that’s how I got here.
Short Boring Post
So I was going to a standard update but realised I have very little to post. I’ll do one anyway but I’m sure the post above will be more interesting.
Poker. Hardly got any hands in at all this month due to spending evenings retiling the kitchen and stuff. Four evenings lost to watching the Mosconi Cup too, plus snooker was on all week, plus my PC has been an arse and has been randomly restarting (usually like 2 minutes into a session). I’ve got maybe 6k hands logged at 200nl, 100nl and 50nl over a couple of site and show a small profit. Going to investigate these £ and Euro games that are going on once HEM bring out multicurrency support.
Snooker. Enjoying myself at this game at the moment. Winning streak continues and I even had a practice last week. Decided to enter a one day tournament whilst my handicap was ridiculously high, but crashed out in a 10.30am Sunday morning hungover manner. Lost on the pink in the deciding frame to a player who plays 4 divisions higher and I had at least a dozen chances to win the frame. Played so bad. I wasn’t even at 50% of my normal game and I scared the shit out of him.
Poker. Hardly got any hands in at all this month due to spending evenings retiling the kitchen and stuff. Four evenings lost to watching the Mosconi Cup too, plus snooker was on all week, plus my PC has been an arse and has been randomly restarting (usually like 2 minutes into a session). I’ve got maybe 6k hands logged at 200nl, 100nl and 50nl over a couple of site and show a small profit. Going to investigate these £ and Euro games that are going on once HEM bring out multicurrency support.
Snooker. Enjoying myself at this game at the moment. Winning streak continues and I even had a practice last week. Decided to enter a one day tournament whilst my handicap was ridiculously high, but crashed out in a 10.30am Sunday morning hungover manner. Lost on the pink in the deciding frame to a player who plays 4 divisions higher and I had at least a dozen chances to win the frame. Played so bad. I wasn’t even at 50% of my normal game and I scared the shit out of him.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Nothing in this life is ever fair, Especially when the Judge is running for Mayor
Soooo, the washing machine repair man comes out last night and condemns old 'washy'. Great. Order a new one for collection today. Whilst he was giving us the bad news, he pipes up with "Can I smell gas?".
Fast forward to today and British Gas have confirmed a leak somewhere and a bloke who owns Corgis has just condemned the cooker.
On the upside though, I don't have to eat the wife's cooking for a while!!!!!
Anyone know someone who stakes SSNL cash players who have had to withdraw their entire roll? :(
Fast forward to today and British Gas have confirmed a leak somewhere and a bloke who owns Corgis has just condemned the cooker.
On the upside though, I don't have to eat the wife's cooking for a while!!!!!
Anyone know someone who stakes SSNL cash players who have had to withdraw their entire roll? :(
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Oooh look, its December
And there goes another month. To recap: I won lots of money, played fairly well for the most part and run like God/Dog. I guess December will involve keeping up the good work and showing I’ve learnt a thing or two. There’s going to be withdrawals unfortunately (Christmas and all that malarky), but all things being well I should really be thinking of adding some higher limits at some point soon. I probably should float that idea past Baz first.
December goals/targets/whatever:- Keep up the good standards I’ve set myself with regard to table selection, quitting, patience. Don’t get too lazy during Christmas – the games can often be juicy.
So what’s been occurring since the last update? Not a lot poker wise. Got a few hands in before the end of the month, but not many. Had my brother pay for the meal I went out on Friday for (which is quite a big thing I can tell you). Took Child 2 to the pub to witness Spurs dominate Villa and only get a draw. The moron forgot his ID so had to traipse half-a-mile home to get it. Spent all Sunday with a monster hangover so played a monster session on Football Manager 2010 instead of doing anything useful. Well, instead of doing anything actually.
Snooker. Ah yes. Its like poker you know. When you’re feeling good, the breaks start flowing. Start doubting yourself and you miss. Hot on the heels of last weeks 35 clearance, my first practice frame yielded a 43 break (missed final black for a 50 fml). Into my singles frame and I’ve knocked in a 44 which is the highest break in our lol-division this season. In fact no-one has had a break bigger than 45 in the 5th tier since the league’s web site began in 2001/2. So the next target is to beat that 45, knock in a 50+, then I guess aim for the most over 30 breaks in one season for the division (record = 6). After that I’d like to beat my long standing high break of 61 from back when I used to play once a week with some mates from uni. I was shocking back then so I must be able to get close nowadays. Oh yeah, we whitewashed the old fogies we played last night and have an even worse bunch next week.
I leave you with a bunch of win:-
December goals/targets/whatever:- Keep up the good standards I’ve set myself with regard to table selection, quitting, patience. Don’t get too lazy during Christmas – the games can often be juicy.
So what’s been occurring since the last update? Not a lot poker wise. Got a few hands in before the end of the month, but not many. Had my brother pay for the meal I went out on Friday for (which is quite a big thing I can tell you). Took Child 2 to the pub to witness Spurs dominate Villa and only get a draw. The moron forgot his ID so had to traipse half-a-mile home to get it. Spent all Sunday with a monster hangover so played a monster session on Football Manager 2010 instead of doing anything useful. Well, instead of doing anything actually.
Snooker. Ah yes. Its like poker you know. When you’re feeling good, the breaks start flowing. Start doubting yourself and you miss. Hot on the heels of last weeks 35 clearance, my first practice frame yielded a 43 break (missed final black for a 50 fml). Into my singles frame and I’ve knocked in a 44 which is the highest break in our lol-division this season. In fact no-one has had a break bigger than 45 in the 5th tier since the league’s web site began in 2001/2. So the next target is to beat that 45, knock in a 50+, then I guess aim for the most over 30 breaks in one season for the division (record = 6). After that I’d like to beat my long standing high break of 61 from back when I used to play once a week with some mates from uni. I was shocking back then so I must be able to get close nowadays. Oh yeah, we whitewashed the old fogies we played last night and have an even worse bunch next week.
I leave you with a bunch of win:-
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
