theonlinepokerleague.com Blog

We are now officially a two modem family

OK my router has been dead for two days and I have reset it and tortured it to try and get it to reconnect. In desperation I raised a call with BT but the response was not what I was after. It then occurred to me that whilst I had been messing with the router that maybe I should input the user name that they first sent me in 2004! Fortunately I had seen the letter from BT with the required info on it just a few weeks ago and so I entered the log on name and my 2 days without my router were over…yippee

Not all is well though as the problem I had before the router played up was still there and that is for some reason I cannot access any 888.com website or use Pacific Poker. This is where my 3 3G Modem cam in handy as I can access the site using that. Downside with 3 is that you can’t access Full Tilt! Thus we are now a 2 modem family and I can access all the sites once again…happy days

Pacific Poker problems

Its unreal, I have the problem with Full Tilt Poker and 3 and now I can’t log onto Pacific Poker via my BT Yahoo ISP. These connection issues are starting to get on my wick!

Hendon Mob Forum League – Week 1

Its week 1 of the Hendon Mob Forum League tonight and I am sure that this is going to be very tricky. I have noted some familiar names from the APAT and UK Football Fans are already signed up to the $11 NLHE event and I know that they are very good players. The league format is that the league will play 15 weeks over a number of different disciplines (HORSE next week.) and the top 5 results for each player will be used to determine final league finishing positions. The top player will win a WSOP package and and then a number of play offs will be used to determine who wins the other 3 packages. I’ve tried playing in these in the past but either I forgot about the games or didn’t get home from work in time. Hopefully I can get over that his year and try and play at least 10 of the 15 games.

3 3G Modem and Full Tilt Poker

I recently purchased a 3 3G Modem as I thought that it would be a good backup for my main ISP and also I would be able to use it with my laptop to play poker when I am flitting about the country. I tried the modem during the cooling off period and it seemed to work fine and I gave it no thought that I wouldn’t be able to use it for my poker sites. Anyway PokerRoom worked fine, William Hill was OK and Party Poker was OK too. The problem came when I tried Full Tilt Poker. Basically the software doesn’t connect when it launches and therefore I cannot actually get onto the poker client.

Naturally enough I assumed it was the firewall and tried a number of settings and then downloaded ZoneAlarm to replace the windows firewall but no joy. Then I found out that some Full Tilt players had encountered this before and that potentially the modem may be the problem. An email from Full Tilt confirmed that other 3 3G Modem users had encountered the same problem and that I should contact the ISP. I, therefore, had a nice chat with 3 today and they seemed to suggest that Full Tilt was on the banned site list from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). Ok I’d never heard of them before so I checked out their site and they are a charity who compile lists of sites with illegal content which is then passed to the ISP’s who then ensure that the sites cannot be accessed. Clearly this is an admirable cause when they are cutting down on child abuse, racial incitement and other criminal obscene content. Internet gambling is, however, perfectly legal in the UK and as such should not find its way onto the banned list. I suspect, therefore, that the representatives from 3 were just fobbing me off some BS. I have, therefore, just had to send them a long email explaining why the IWF response is bollox. Other than this site the 3 3G modem works fine but honestly if I can’t play at Full Tilt then I may have to consider that the product is not fit for purpose and try and cancel my 2 year contract after 2 months!

Here’s hoping that they can come up with a proper answer today.

APAT Slovenian Open

crikey I had another shocker in this one. I had managed to double up my chips to 8,500 and made a move with AQ to steal the blinds. Unfortunately I was early and got repopped by the large stack. Stupidly I called. If I had let it go I would have gone down to 6,500 chips and I would still have been in reasonable shape but he had AK and ultimatelys we both had Aces and 5s but I had the lowest kicker. I made 53 from 100 this time which was a marginal improvement on Thursday but I definately must do better next time.

Brand new The Online Poker League site now released

I have decided that as there are now literally hundreds of online poker leagues that I would change my site for 2008 away from running my own league to being an online and live poker league directory. The new site has now been released and can be found here: http://theonlinepokerleague.com . The site features popular online poker leagues and live poker organisations (eg APAT). In addition there is a directory that I am building of organisations that are running live poker leagues, online poker leagues and also clubs and pubs that host poker games. There are nearly 150 sites on this list so far and it will be increasing over the forthcoming weeks.

This for me though is not the best part. The best new function is wrapped up within a poker forum (http://topl.freeforums.org/ ) that I have set up for players to discuss the leagues that they play and also make recommendations for the directory. As part of the forum there is a function to download a toolbar. Now I have set up a number of links in the toolbar to online poker leagues and then split the live poker leagues by country and by clicking a flag you can get a list of sites that appertain to that country or region.  This is a nice touch and means that you don’t have to go searching for favourites or on google as it is there on your toolbar. The forum also has a thread set up for suggestions of sites that can go on the toolbar so members can recommend sites for inclusion. The toolbar also has a newsfeed from Launchpoker and The Hendon Mob sites so you can keep up to date with all things poker. The toolbar can be downloaded from here: http://topl.OurToolbar.com .

Any comments or suggestions welcome.

Latest APAT

I can’t really remember much about Thursday nights game as I had a few hands early and built my stack up about 25% and then completely card dead for an hour by which time the all in madness was just starting. I still had 4800 chips and there was a raise to 900 so I put the player all in and he called with JJ and I had KK so I was in good shape for 0.2 seconds which is the amount of time it took for the flop to destroy my tournament! I was out in 80th place from about 115 runners.

I hope that todays game goes a bit better!

APAT Scandinavian Open

aargh..possibly the worst result tonight…I bubbled the final table by finishing 11th out of 105 players.

The APAT have changed the format of the game so instead of 5,000 chips and 15 min blinds it is now 4,000 and 12 min blinds and initially I thought that this would be OK but to be honest the last hour or hour and a half has been all in poker. In the tournament that I played just before Christmas there was much more play for the first 2 to 2 and a half hours and this has just been too much of an adjustment for my taste. I think if they wanted 12 min blinds then they should have left the chips at 5,000 or 4,000 chips with 15 min blinds.

Anyway back to tonights game, I had Aces a couple of times early and managed to get some chips and coming into the All in madness I was in the top 10 when unfortunately my cards dried up and it was difficult to make any moves as there was nearly always an all in before me. I stayed alive with A8 a couple of times and some other marginal hands but ultimately got caught with A6 vs A8. I was completely decimated after that but managed to triple up and get a few chips but ultimately 10k of chips with the blinds 3,000/1,500 is not good so I had to go with any 2 and the miracle didn’t come. I suppose I could have folded my hand and crept onto the final table and an increased payout but honestly I needed to double up a couple of times and had to make my stand if I wanted to get into the points proper rather than just squeaking a point and an additional $10.

We have a week off next week for the online tournaments as the APAT have one of their live events which unfortunately I will not be going to so it will be back to the online tourneys on the 17 Jan I think.

APAT Lithuania Open

I played the APAT Lithuania Open at Blue Square this evening and I ended up 59th from 116 runners. The hand that almost finished me off had me bet when ahead and then go all in when behind! I had just over 5k and the blinds were 200/400 with and increase due within 1 or 2 hands. I’ve picked up JJ under the gun and raised to 1,200 which everyone folded but one player. The flop cam xAA and I considered that the chances of him having an Ace with two on board was remote and so I shoved my chips in. Bizarrely he thought for a couple of seconds before calling with his Ax and he took almost all my chips. With hindsight I wish as I was first to act that my initial bet was stronger or in fact all in and then he would have been less likely to call but c’est la vie. Not a great start to my New Year objectives but there is a chance to redeem myself on Saturday as there is another online APAT tourney to have a go at.

Wow - I’m back!! - Goals for 2008

Lol…I’ve tried to access my blog a number of times since my last entry so as I was tidying up my site this evening I thought I would just check it before I erased the whole thing and BINGO!!..it worked.I’m not sure what else to say apart from that. I had a good poker 2007 as I was up about $4,750 by the end of the year which against my previous 2 years of down $80 and up $150 or so is pretty good.

I don’t think I should get carried away with goals for 2008 as I don’t really have the time to spend playing as I need to to make serious money. That said though making the same as last year should be one of my goals now that I have the bankroll which I definately did not have last year. On top of that I really need to break my virginity for playing live and I will try and do that either through APAT or by joining a local pub league. Finally and starting tomorrow I want to try and get some decent points on the APAT online series this year. Last year I didn’t play that many events because of the $22 buy in but that has now dropped to $11 now that they are at Blue Square. I played my first game of this season just before Christmas and managed a final table so I want to try and emulate that as much as I can this year.

Goals therefore:

1. Try and make at least $4,750 profit this year
2. Start to play live at either APAT or in a Pub Poker League
3. Try and make as many final tables in online APAT events as possible to get a good haul of points in this years championship.