theonlinepokerleague.com Blog

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.

Bigger Deal Tournament

I played in my first multi table tournament for a month last night. The tournament was hosted by Anthony Holden of Big Deal: One Year as a Professional Poker Player fame. His sequel was called Bigger Deal: A Year on the New Poker Circuit and this book has inspired a blog with inputs from a number of well known writers and poker celebs. It is this blog which hosted a $10 event at PokerStars with $2,700 added money. Also in the field was Al Alvarez who wrote The Biggest Game in Town.

My intention in this game with 15 min blinds was to play real tight and just go with premium hands in the first hour and this is exactly what happened  but sadly because of the tight image I cultivated I only managed to reap the blinds when I got my aces (twice!!). At the end of the hour then I was pretty much where I started. The next hour was again fairly tight although I was trying to loosen up a bit but that is difficult with what seems lik 83 every hand..lol. Anyway I managed to double up this time with Aces as I had only 5 big blinds so it was not too much for the big stack to call. This did put me up to about 25 spot with just 45 of the 191 entrants left and the prospect of getting into the money for the top 18. After another round or two I was getting short again so when it is folded to me on the button I push with my KJ and the big blind ends up with QQ! I was just typing in GG when I hit runner runner Jacks to stay in the game and put my opponent on tilt. After the break the blinds were 300/600 and I had only 3500 chips so I pushed with my AK and double up and then I managed to win a few more hands before we got to the last 19.At this point I was between 16-18 place depending on the blinds and I know I should have been raising but we had the 3 shortest stacks at our table and 3 of the biggest stacks. Any raise that I make is in my opinion always going to be called by a big stack so given the dynamics I decided that the best course of action is to just squeak into the money. The payout for 10-18 spot was around $56. The bubble though lasted around 15 mins and I did eventually push with AK to double up again and therefore managed to outlast one of the other short stacks. That done and being in the money we then come down to 2 tables and I managed to pick up KQ early so I push with my last 5k and I am called by A8 which holds up and I am out in 17th.

This was a good tournament and I had plenty of support from the guys at the UK Football Fans forum which did help me to focus at a time when I was really card dead - thx guys and gals! The next tourney is in 3 weeks so I’ll be up for that and hopefully this time I will get one of the celebs and at table and go bounty hunting!

I was just saying today…

that I needed to play some tourneys again as I have spent most of my time recently on Sit N Gos and a little while on some cash games. Fortunately I have been sent an invite for a game tomorrow which has some UK celebs in attendance and a nice $2,700 added to the prize pool. As you should know if you get games with added money then they definately offer value so I have registered for the game. I just need to make sure I get home in time but with 15 min blinds in won’t matter too much if I am a bit late!

Absolute Poker cheating controversy

Not a day goes by without an accusation from players that poker sites are rigged but in one case it appears that the accusation has some foundation.

Absolute Poker have just been caught with their pants down with one of their top consultants accessing some old unused accounts and having a superuser account also open which shows the players cards at the table. He then contrived to play these accounts and dump chips from one player to another to avoid suspicion and then he went on to win the $1,000 entry fee tournament that he was in. He was only caught when a player at the final table requested a hand history and Absolute accidentally sent him the hand history for every player in the tournament. It was then established that player PotRipper managed to avoid all the accidents that players would get into with big hands vs AA etc. I have to say that at the levels that I would play then the cheating would not be apparent as the guy was going for big stakes. Presumbaly networked site such as Vegas247 also had players affected by the actions of this guy