When You Want Something You Have Never Had You Must Do What You Have Never Done

This idea struck me as a way to instigate change. I think we need to learn the lessons from our past and move forward. I generally believe that if you are successful in one area, some of the skills in your first area of success are transferable to future projects. New specialised learning and mentoring from experts in the new field is also required. There are just some things you can not teach yourself!

"Hearts a Mess" Goyte

Pick apart
The pieces of your heart
And let me peer inside
Let me in
Where only your thoughts have been
Let me occupy your mind
As you do mine

You have lost
(Too much love)
To fear, doubt and distrust
(It’s not enough)
You just threw away the key
(To your heart)

You don’t get burned
(’Cause nothing gets through)
It makes it easier
(Easier on you)
But that much more difficult for me
To make you see…

Love ain’t fair
So there you are
My love

Your heart’s a mess
You won’t admit to it
It makes no sense
But I’m desperate to connect
And you, you can’t live like this

Your heart’s a mess
You won’t admit to it
It makes no sense
But I’m desperate to connect
And you, you can’t live like this

Your heart’s a mess
You won’t admit to it
It makes no sense
But I’m desperate to connect
And you, you can’t live like this

Love ain’t safe
You won’t get hurt if you stay chaste
So you can wait
But I don’t wanna waste my love

Non Poker Ramblings (ok there is still some poker)

I am pretty bored with my writing about poker. I have other interesting things that go on in my life too:) I think I may start rambling on about other fun and interesting topics. Let's see how many poker references follow.

The bowls pennant season has started and I am skipping a rink. We had a convincing round one win against Northmead. We have pretty cool new pennant shirts as well (great material and styling).
We were all very happy with our 6-0 victory. I feel like I have been waiting so long for this opportunity and it has finally arrived. It is great to be a part of this team. I put down approxiamately 500 bowls in preparation this week. They were delivered in 4 quality sessions with team mates. We practiced and drilled hard and had one person setting up game scenarios and calling shots. It really gave me the confidence to call tough shots in the game that I had seen my third nail dozens of times in training and vice versa.

It was like all our birthday's had come at once!

It seems like all my mates birthday's are happening at once. This means many big nights out. One particular night we went out to Manly on Valentine's weekend. Our accomodation was less than stellar, as the demand for accomodation that weekend was high, but we all managed and didn't really spend too much time in our room anyway. The birthday boy was so sick he had to be driven home immediately after a game of bowls in the morning and I had to get the ferry and train home!

We meet some pretty cool people on our night out. There were the horse trainers and the CSU CSI people. I mostly just chilled whilst everyone got right on it! We had some good food and the drinks kept flowing! It is my birthday soon, and everyone seems to be doing pretty well so I am expecting some pretty awesome presents from all!

One of our teammates has booked next weekend for Manly again and I might as well book it for the following weekend as well! Manly or Darling Harbour...I think we might go out in the city for my birthday instead of Manly for a change. It will be easier for poker friends to join in on the celebrations. I don't want those guys
to miss out. We have all worked really hard together to improve our games and any gains I make are in no small part due to our collaboration through discussions, calculations and hand history revisions. I don't think you can discount the generally aura awesomeness transfer either! It seems like when someone goes well it spurs everyone on.

Europa

I didn't manage to get over this Summer. I still really want to go to Europe. Etihad have some great return tickets to Germany. The airfare is less than 2k return, I have plans to travel there in May. Ship me my club incentive payments please. I'd like to
not have to take out any money from my poker bankroll as it is building steadily.

Melbourne Aussie Millions Trip

It is great to play cash games during any big buy in tournament series. The Aussie Millions at Crown was no different, thousands of people from around the World came down under to be a part of the action. We only decided to go down to Melbourne a few days prior.

The Monday before our trip Ryan McKay 'iChipd' on Pokerstars came 8th out of 8885 entrants in the Sunday Millions for around 20k USD. This is certainly a great effort and a big start to the year. He is one of the members of our newly formed 'Team MTG' which is mostly made up of former Magic the Gathering players who have morphed into highly profitable Multi Table Grinders online. For more information see www.ashtoncartwright.com.

After Ryan's win I suggested we go down and play cash games and tournaments. He was definitely keen and I had one bowls trip to go enter before leaving. I travelled to Raymond Terrace in Newcastle to play in an NSWIS team for the weekend. We managed to finish in 1st place for 1k each. That afternoon we got back to Sydney and I didn't waste any time flying out that night with Ryan to Melbourne.

We have great group of friends in Melbourne. They are mostly poker players but a few are into various sports. We had some great nights out and I was a bit more balanced in my approach this time around and only played poker every second day. Last trip I made fantastic money. This trip I was up modestly live and breakeven online except for a step 6 ticket which I won which is worth a live tournament buy in of 2100USD. I will probably offer people percentages of this and play the ANZPT in Sydney again.

There were 2 big pots that went against me, one I played badly and won the minimum (actually there were a few) and some where I feel I adjusted badly to live play. Playing live is mostly more passive, I feel I needed to play more aggresively with my high potential hands; I like the way I played this one despite losing the pot in a 3 way all in on the flop.

... (
... (
Villian 1 ($515) AcAs
Hero (MP) ($965) Kh9h
Villian 2 ($550) Jc10s
CO ($1461)
Button ($650)
SB (
BB (

It was full ring 2-5NL but I can't remember all of the exact stack amounts, I just remember thinking these guys are playing terribly post flop I need to play any two cards (haha)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with Kh 9h

1 fold, 1 limp, 1 limp, Hero calls, 1 call, Button calls $5, SB calls, BB checks,

Flop: ($50) Jh, 9c, 5h (2 players, 1 all-in)

Villian 1 bets $50, Hero makes it $150, Villian 2 raises to $550 (All-in)

Villian 1 tanks and says he is worried about me and calls $515 (All-in)

Hero calls $550

Turn: ($1635) 6c (3 players all-in)

River: ($1635) 2s (3 players all-in)

Villian 1 had limped in with black Aces and wins the pot.

and Villian 2 had J10 off suit

So aces held and I had great equity in the pot. If I was up against a set and the nut flush draw then it would have been horrible but I had basically ruled out the nut flush draw. I really thought the guy behind me was stronger than J10, it seems to me to be really a terrible move. The call by aces well, if you are going to limp pre flop hoping to re-raise but everyone calls and then there is significant flop action...I would suggest folding.

The guy with aces was a top guy and did actually think for a bit before calling his stack off. I have a have a hand for the next entry that I play poorly where he is sitting in the same position and he makes the same bet in the flop where I have a set.

Against 2 hands (J-10 and K-9) his hand is a dog, most likely 30% as he was here but more than likely less than 20%. It is like dry aces in Omaha.

My hand was just under 50% to win and slightly less if someone had a re-draw to a full house with a set. 50% to triple up, all day.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 112538

Raymond Terrace

There is a fours tournament in Raymond Terrace this weekend. I will be playing in an NSWIS team with Dave Ferguson, Carl Healey, Jesse Noronha and myself. It should be a good bowls tournament.

Dave and Carl will be fresh from a training camp in New Zealand preparing for the upcoming Trans Tasman. I'm sure we will go well. Geoff Campbell will be our team coach/ manager/ chef/ driver/ pilot & relationship expert.

If Only

After a pretty good start to December in online poker I decided to go pretty hard over Christmas. I figured the play over Christmas would be easier with an influx of recreational holiday players. Over a 10 day period I went on a massive heater on Pokerstars and made about 3k basically in $10-$50 buy ins.

Around this time I went for the 2nd time to Star City's new poker room. In the first hour I went up 4 buy ins. I would basically just have it and everyone would bet into me, for example the first hand with my friend sitting next to me.

I have A5 diamonds on the button with several limpers 40 big blind game. Flop is A 2 5 rainbow, top two pair not too bad. Big blind bets 25 into 30, I call, turn is a 10, he bets 70, I call in position, and I am basically getting it in on the the river but he basically beats me into the pot when the ace comes on the river for another 100 which I call and win.

A few hands later I flop the nuts with 76 suited hearts on a 543 board with two diamonds. It is pretty obvious the guy has a 10's > AK suited hand as he had been pretty inactive and raised it up pre, he watched the flop keenly and was pretty pleased with the low flop. I felt he had a 10-JJ type hand. Also if someone has a set I want to get it in or a diamond flush draw with over cards. I lead into the pot for 40, he quickly makes it 200, I roll over my hand, he says he is dead so another buy in.

Next I have k6 of diamonds on the button I flop a straight draw 543 flop with one diamond, call a flop bet with 3 others. The turn brings a diamond so I have the second nut flush with a straight draw. The river brings my flush in with the A of diamonds, so it is backdoor, the nuts, in position and I have a guy still betting into me, I didn't say I wan't blessed. Another buyin.

This is about where my run ends, really wish I went home after this as I have a series of near misses and breakeven for hours.

If I played incorrectly I would have made 7k on the 2-500 table. For example; We start playing 6 handed instead of the usual 9 handed. I love 6 handed Vs less guys as I get to play more hands in position and just more hands in general compared to full ring 9 handed.

One guy at our table had just won the tournament that night for 10k and was now playing cash and down about 3k. Another guy was calling everything including re-raises, out of no where, with anything, out of position, so even with just these two at the table it was great. The tournament player was over playing hands and getting it in pre with ak on a non aggressive 6 handed table for 100 big blinds.

One particular hand he squeezed me out of a huge win, I was a bit annoyed with his over play as it winds up costing me at least 1200 by making me fold when he re-opens the betting to a re-raise by Aces on the button. The solid button guy re-raises the 'any two' early position raiser. Normally with QQ I would re-raise this here but with both of us sitting on 1200 I don't want to be getting it in pre, I feel he is decently strong, he hasn't gotten out of line and I am out of position Vs probably the other strongest player at the table. He does have a weakness however, in that he overplays Aces and Kings for 300 bb's as we will see later.

However in this hand where I flat 40 in the sb, the big blind re raise to 140 with AK, button makes it 500, I fold my QQ and AK calls. Flop comes Q 3 5, blank blank, Aces win. I would have surely stacked aces here with my QQ...especially since a similar situation comes up within 30 minutes.

I have 66 in the small blind. UTG raises, Any two guy calls, tight solid button guy, star of previous example raises to 100, now I have 1200 in stack still so 12 to 1 to set mine, not quite enough considering the following.

Two guys behind me including under the gun raiser who is the tournament guy. He is in for 6 buy ins. He doesn't like to slow down and could completely re-raise the pot again. Also 20-1 is better or 5% of my stack to set mine. I am out of position.

However, tournament guy instead of re-raising, just guy flat calls 100 and so does the any two guy. There is just under 400 in the pot when the flop comes out (first card 6 xx) at this point I am a bit annoyed as I made the right decision but wished that I played like a crazy person who doesn't like money, because I would have been raking it in. So the action goes check, check, and the button bets 500! 500 into 400, over pair anyone, not folding ever anyone, I get the noose ready for the second time in an hour...One of the supervisors watching the table saw my QQ hand and my 66 hand, he should have comp'd me a room to do David Carridine.