Been a while

I'm sorry for the lack of updates but you know when things can't get any worse, and believe me I've been to hell a few times recently as readers of this blog will acknowledge, but it seems I've gone past hell and still falling..... I honestly can not believe my luck! But meh fingers crossed. I say that because I have my 7th back op in 4 weeks, and I've had to reduce my medication for the pain in the run up to the op which of course means I've been climbing the walls. So poker is the least of my worries just yet. You see I'm still very much in the early stages and can not just play anything and still need to build up my bankroll which means still playing in the leagues I played on BV and Stars, but I can not commit to a month long league in my present condition and have not been for some months now. I'm lucky if I can play a cash game for 30 minutes, and that's just a couple of times a week. So looking forward to the op and I'm falling into the same mindset I had done previous when I pinned all my hopes on the corrective and the spinal cord surgery only to have both fail miserable. But I can not help it, they've found something on a new MRI and although I have already been told it won't kill all the pain it should kill some of the pain. I know I'm expecting to much but I can't help it. I just want to get the love back of playing poker and trying the unimaginable of two successfully $10k challenges. And try and take my game to the next level. I have now spent all my previous challenge cash and ended up upgrading my car to a newer model and really chuffed I did as well. It means I have something solid to show for all those yrs of grinding.... Poker as been good to me and also bad to me but really up for the challenge after the op. So fingers crossed and all that and at last I can be normal ish again and concentrate on the game I use to love so much...... I'll try and update this blog soon after the op and I should be back playing again very soon.

Well that was fun, let's do it again !!!!

Oh the moment I felt in August last year when I finally realised I had actually managed to complete this challenge was something that I can never forget. I had the hairs on the back of my head stand up because it was that special, so special that I had stuck with it through thick and thin, has you would of read during all those years of updating my progress. But alias that was almost 6 months ago now, but.......... It is now official, I'm now onto my 2nd $10k challenge. I did mention it in my previous 2 updates but nothing major about it in depth. I officially started it on the 1st August 2013, and here was me wanting to complete it within 2 years.... Ha ha yes very funny !! Its already almost 6 months since I started. I have started blogging about it but its on Bet Victor's poker forum. Its like the previous challenge in I started it and wrote about it on PPP forum before I moved it over to here. I also keep saying I will merge both parts into 1 complete version, and I will do the same for this 2nd challenge also. Although you've not really missed anything. I'm not fully committed to it yet with me missing a good 3 months towards the end of last year. It's something I hope I never have to go through again. I keep saying this is the worst I have ever been and blah blah blah, but again it is. Having been told I have been on the wrong medication for 3 years and the effect that had on me together with 3 long term pets dying within a space of 4 weeks again killed me and Jo. Two cats aged 14 and 20 ripped us both apart because both had latched on to us and giving us comfort when we needed it made it even worse when they died. I mean even Christmas day was a wash out with both of us, and that was 2 months after they had died, so you get some idea of the emotion's we endured. I tried to begin a new chapter with the new year and all that, but its proving hard still. I have also gotten use to lying on the sofa bed and playing poker from the laptop. But although its good for a table or 2, its nothing compared to my desktop computer set up, so anything more than 3 tables and the laptop just can not cope and lags badly, but the thought of going back to desktop now makes me shudder at the thought of it. The big difference is lying down on the sofa bed is kind to my back, along with the heated blanket on top of that and you start to understand why I dont want to move back to the recliner..... I keep trying to think of a compromise but nothing yet. Anyways back to my new challenge. So like mentioned with the new year and all that I decided to play the BV league again. The only trouble is, your score is calculated over the month with 4 games a day during the week and couple of games at weekend. So to be in with a shout of top 10 your going to have to grind about 60 games out during a month. Although in theory I have the time, its so draining playing 4 freeroll games a day. You also have to dodge all the bullets that freeroll games brings ie the muppets who open shove all the stack every hand and generally all the bad plays that freeroll games bring. But hey if that is what Bet Victor poker wants to do and sees this way to get more players on there site then thats there choice of course. I see it as a challenge, and with €1500 for 1st place over the month and with the top 200 players over the month being rewarded as well you can see the benefits of wanting to play there. Maybe I can grind it out for a month and really go for it and then think of moving the challenge and the cash to somewhere else is a thought, but at the moment its the place I need to be with the new challenge still in the very early stages. This month however I have played or tried to play more games than I have previously, but still nowhere near the 60 to 65 games you need to play to get the points you need to be able to win the months top prize. They have a pretty cool and thought out points system, and along with the sit out players being removed after the first level your left with currently about 250 players in the 7pm nightly game. The point system begins with everybody starting on 1500 points, and that figure drops or rises depending on were you finish in the game. If your the first out you would receive a minus score and thats then taken off your overall score, and the higher you finish the more points you score. But there is a twist, the higher you are on the overall scoreboard the harder it is to score points. For instance, if a player starts the game in say 200th overall and his mate is in the top 10 say, and they both went out say 51st and 52nd, the player in 200th overall would score more points than the player who was in the top 10. So this way you have to decide if its worth playing a game knowing you have to finish in a high spot just to make sure you added points to your overall score and not lose points. So say for instance you have AK in the first hand of a game and you see 3 players all in even before it gets to you, you've then got to choose is it wise to call knowing you would lose a lot of points overall on the leader board if you lost the hand, so you also need to plan your moves, which is great in a game where all the players had a bit of skill in there game, but remember this is a freeroll, and we all know that in a freeroll everything goes....... But fair play to BV, they also listen to the players via a forum. In the first stages of me joining, I noticed some players were running the clock down on every hand to gain more places up the leaderboard. Which is not bad if one person was doing it, but when you had 5 or 6 players on your table doing it every hand it got a bit much, and there was clearly some advantage being gained, so I said what I thought and within 2 months they had cut the clock time per hand to 10 seconds from 20 and if anybody was still abusing the clock for no reason you could report that player and if found guilty they would suspend that player. So its a well run league, and gives players like me with years of experience a new ride in trying to out think new players to the game of poker, without luck being a part of that game and ending up losing me points. But that goes to every player that plays the league. There are some players that play almost the full month's games, and if I had a gripe about how its run, that would be my only one. Clearly, someone who had the chance to play more games a day / week stand a better chance overall than say somebody who had to work and could only play once a day. They say that the scoring policy takes this into account, but it doesn't, and it never will. But other than that, its a well run league that gives out €10k away every month, which is lot of money to give away every month, so overall it's a good way to start my 2nd challenge, I say while screaming at my laptop how the fcuk can you call my shove with 3 8 suited for your tournament life who then outdrew my AQ and I end up out in 34th in this mornings game....... I have however been starting to play a bit more on BV and just the freeroll league games. They run on the MicroGaming network, and they do have Hyper sit n go's with 500 chips 2 minute blinds. Both HU and short handed, and I have been playing more and more. They also have a couple of Carnage mtt's which are basically the All in's version of the OnGame network. There not massive fields with around 30 or so players in both games. Its a pity they do not have more, but then again for me thats probably a good thing, seeing how well I run in them!! I shall close now with my new challenge total....... It was a high of £123, but some cash and mtt's along with those hyper's I mentioned, and its down to £93 as I speak. I might of gained a couple of spots in the overall league table with this mornings finish, but I'm still about the 40th spot which is only good for I think €20. But there are still 4 or 5 games to go this month, so shall see. But at this time it's currently £93. I must mentioned my long term buddy Losbert as well, who has also taken to his own challenge and joined me on BV and I think hes currently around the £30 mark, but he's at this disadvantage i spoke about early, in the fact he works during the week, an is often not home for the 7pm game, so he has done really well to make it where he is as well. Another update soon I promise....