Poker

Any regular players amongst us?

 

Yes. Played it as a very serious hobby from 2004-2010, and just finding time to dabble once again now that the kids are older.

 

Me. I play weekly locally and been to vegas and played a few knock out tournaments there. I'm not 100% serious player but do enjoy a game of poker

 

Used to early 2000’s, mainly on a Sunday evening/Monday morning at Nottingham Casino in their open tournaments, won a few quid, lost a lot more.
Stopped mainly cos work got in the way.

 

Patiently waits for @Stephen Dawson

 

Used to play Grosvenor in Sheffield regular when i lived in Rotherham, was a regular on the last table for a while, but the amount of times id rejoin outwayed any winnings i had over the yrs, but a great night out.

 

I play on a Sunday night with a few folks in the local pub, not really for much money - so its not exactly easy - people will chase any old rubbish!

 

Haven't played since May 2023.

 

A tale of many it seems

played regularly 2005 to 2012, online and a bit of a dabble in the smaller live games, very occasionally since

was a player on sky mainly so could see how many times I folded a winning hand on the tv show they used to do!

 

I’ve been playing for the best part of 20 years online. I’ve played a mixture of Tournaments and Cash (mainly mid stakes PLO).

I’ve done more study over the last few months, subscribe to GTO wizard and watch Spraggy on YouTube pretty much every night. My game has gone to whole new level. I’ve final tabled about 10 $109 tournaments in the last 3 weeks and won 8 MTTs in the last month alone with some reasonably big scores of $2k, $1.5k.

Last night I had a win and a 3rd for another 1500.

Hopefully the sun run continues. Nice to finally have a decent poker bankroll again.

Reason for the post was basically to see if there’d be enough to set up a BBS home game on Pokerstars for a bit of fun, it can be as low a buy in as needed, not about money, just a bit of a laugh playing some cards.

 

I remember us talking about poker back in the day mate. If my memory serves me correctly, you ran a poker website, message board.

 

So much the same as Barnsley

 

I'd just be wary of thinking you've got it cracked or trying to move up - a substantial element of your good month will be variance and there will be a month where you win nowt.

Plenty of people get overconfident after a few good results and take a more relaxed view of bankroll management and it only ever ends one way.

 

Played a fair bit when I lived in North America but with my current nomadic lifestyle it is difficult to get a game together. Various countries online gambling rules have been causing difficulties with playing online but I have a new VPN which should allow me back onto pokerstars sometime in the next few weeks.

 

I spent 12 years working for PokerStars and been playing 20 years online - started of with SNGs but they died the minute spins were introduced - so i moved to MTTs around 2015.

Play on the Ipoker network now. The games got increasinly difficult with the introduction of solvers, but i still manage to hold my own. My biggest challenge is time. Trying to fire 50 tournaments a week while having a family life is near on impossible. So mainly just play Sundays.

 

I’m rolled now to play $109s comfortably with over 100 buy ins.

I’ve never suggested I’ve cracked it

 

I was (still am) a moderator on the Blonde poker forum, which was named such due to it being a joint venture involving Dave "El Blondie" Colclough, who was one of the original regulars on Late Night Poker. The forum, like many, is largely a ghost town these days.

I was a guest on the Sky Poker channel evening show a couple of times, when that ran. Paul Walsh was one of the celebrity guests on one of the shows, so that produced a few interesting tales of 80s football.

I played the WSOP Main Event in 2010, after qualifying via a $256 satellite on Full Tilt. Lasted into late on the 2nd day, but still two days short of making the money.

I've also got a GUKPT trophy upstairs somewhere, after winning one of their online Main Events in 2008. Still my biggest win to date.

I originally built a poker bankroll from a $100 deposit, but chose to use the funds for 'real life' stuff when we moved house in 2011 and had to rent and pay a mortgage simultaneously for 6 months. Building one these days is much more difficult as the games are all No-Limit now, so there's more volatility, and the micro-stakes games are virtually impossible to beat the rake structure. Limit Hold'em was king online in 2004, and it was relatively easy to move up the limits with proper bankroll management.

The game has changed so much since solver strategy became dominant, and I'm essentially having to re-learn it, which is quite a fun challenge. GTO strategy is a totally different mindset to adopt, and un-learning previous instincts is the hardest part of it. I've always enjoyed playing non-Holdem variants, as learning the other games was a great way to improve overall. PLO is my favourite game, but the natural variance it brings is huge. Mega fun and frustrating as hell, all in one go.

 

Be careful with VPNs, as most sites can detect when they're being used. If you're caught playing outside of their jurisdiction you'll run the risk of having your funds confiscated, so don't deposit anything significant if you're attempting to try it.

Black Friday changed the online landscape massively, when the USA player pool disappeared virtually overnight (land of the free, my arse!) GGPoker is the best site these days, with a player based dominated by Russians, Ukranians, Brazilians and the Chinese, none of whom were particularly prevalent countries pre Black Friday.

 

Were you based on the Isle of Man when working there?

I had an interview there once and thought nothing had come of it, but they phoned me up about two months later to offer me a role, by which time I'd just committed to starting a new job elsewhere. I often wonder how things would have been different if I'd gone the other way. 18% tax rate would have been nice, for a start.

 

Na mate, was originally in London and then Malta from 2016. Was a great company to work for before Amaya and eventually Flutter came along.