Ok long time no update, sorry.

I had a hectic time at uni as I have no January exams so effectively half my finals were essays which were due in December. *Crosses fingers*. So I didn’t play any poker at all and had just come off a -1k day so a break was good I think, although they do say that when you fall of the bike it’s important to get straight back on. Anyway finished everything and was reasonably pleased. My essay questions were, if anyone’s interested:

1. In what ways if any are there ethics in world politics?
2. Is further welfare state retrenchment likely in the UK? Discuss the politics of unemployment benefits and at least one other area of social policy in your answer.
3. Book review of Herman and Chomsky’s’ Manufacturing Consent.
4. Presentation on the upcoming strategy for the Conservative parties manifesto, as if we were the think tank selling our ideas.
5. To what extent is it possible to measure the media impact on foreign policy formulation?
6. + Other little bits and pieces/ presentations or group work.


All that was in in a period of 18 days or so, essays are 3000 words (15 sources), so it was a slog and comfortably the hardest I have e ever worked in my life.


Ok onto life, had a good couple of nights out in Manc afterwards, was knackered though, the adrenaline had been going for those 3 weeks and I needed a sleep. Then xmas which was standard, I was/am in Norfolk for it with family, had our cousins round as one of them is going to Afghanistan in Feb. Back to London for New Year, then back to Norfolk, back to London, back to Norfolk back to London for some work experience, back to Norfolk and then back to Manc.
Poker wise, unless I hit some insane heater or downswing I will have made 10k this year (with bonuses). This is a little disappointing in a way but I would have taken it when I deposited 600 into stars last Dec. I missed about 6 month’s plays due to uni, travelling or losing at limit so next year should be good. I have fixed my redline, I think, and am much more confident as a player. Cheers to everyone who helped from golden jag at the beginning, to palmer and everyone else who sweats with me (esp. woody, niggy and Mr. and Mrs. likey). I will play 100nl in 2010 and will make some good $, ship the VPP’s with the new stars system (please someone explain it as stevedarake has confused me). I also hope to run like prod live.

Happy new year all.

Music for the day, went to a progressive house (I think) night, it was shit but I managed to get through (cheers Mandy), here’s a link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLmOHfjLVWM

oh and the music bump for the week, yes its old, yes its a remix, yes its drum and bass but fuck me its a tune. can you handle it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozV_vWXZgZY

Ok so to recap the weekend. Was in the top 3 funniest weekends of my life. But will probably horrify most people as the behaviour was appalling. Like really terrible. I apologize.

Anyway so we started of the weekend as I said playing darts at home drinking a concoction of tenants, Smirnoff ice (a cheap rip off) and amaretto. I couldn’t be arsed going out as I was knackered so came and lost some $ at poker. They went out and destroyed a club. Basically some people (not my housemates + mates) nicked a crate of VS and were giving them out. A bouncer saw my housemate had 2 in his hand and asked him where he got them from. For some unknown reason he replied ‘dunno, I did not steal them though’. What an idiot, they called the police and he legged it. Bad start to the weekend. So they came back and were up till about 5.30 and had the legendary mayo, ketchup, marge and tzatziki fight. Obviously being LADS they were up at 10ish and off for breakfast. They went to wetherspoons and the rules (see previous post) were enforced. Can you handle a veggie breakfast was asked to one guy. FFS, course I can. Long story short it came, he abused the breakfast and waitress (when she had left- I fucking hate mushrooms, what a shit breakfast) and someone, quick as a flash says tell her. Bad times. So he goes and tells the waitress. She wasn’t happy. Then a woman walks past their table and my housemate says ‘she’s horrible’ like 3 people all shout tell her. So he runs after her, holds the taxi door open and tells her. This is probably the worst thing I have ever heard anyone do and do not condone it.
Onto bowling where again the guy was asked if he could handle ordering mushrooms for lunch. He of course accepted and then complained. Tell her. FFS. He refused as he said it was rude (these guys had twisted logic) so he had to run all the way across the bowling alley, in the middle of the lanes topless, screaming, I fucking love mushrooms.
Back home and we started pre drinking for the pub crawl. What a stupid idea. Anyway some random’s came into our house, we had never met them before. They walked in as I was wearing a bike helmet and another guy was hitting me as hard as he could in the heard as he had asked could I handle it. Course I fucking can. One was wearing a black shirt, white tie and blue cardy. A bloke. I leaned to guy next to me and said, really nice shirt tie combo, he replied, tell him. FML, so I told him, the whole room went silent; they all thought I was a cunt, which wasn’t far of the truth, whilst 5 others cried with laughter. Onto the pub crawl. Oh and my mate had to do the worm in every pub.

Pub 1: broke a pool cue over some1, bunch of scrots in the corner and a guy said they looked mysterious. Tell them. He refused on grounds he would die. Forfeit time. He had to walk into a later bar, take his top of, stride to the bar, show his guns and order a STRONG BOW, whilst acting out what he said. Then see it away.

Pub 2: lots of press ups but nothing too bad
Pub 3: STRONG BOW time, my mate said my other housemate fancied this other girl, right next to his sort of girlfriend. They have not spoken since (my housemate and the girl). Again nothing to bad
Pub 4: saw a fat guy, some person said he looked like Fabio capello. Someone then said more like fatty capello. Tell him. Uh OH, he refused on the grounds it was bullying, STRONGBOW time. My housemate had to admit his relationship (of 4 years) was based on 90% laziness. Didn’t go down to well. Bouncer asked my housemate for ID. He came in and said he was a wanker. Tell him. He did, good lad.
Pub 5: Can you handle eating that bunch of lilies, so a guy did, well tried and got quite far. More STRONGBOW times, lots of press ups (M-I-N-E).
Pub 6: made barwoman cry ( no quite sure why), maybe due to spraying beer round like champagne, bouncer went mental as it was 6.30 ish pm

Pub 7: things started getting really bad. Guy said his mum was a slag. Tell her. So he called her, told her. Also can you handle a pint of ½ vinegar, ½ beer. Course I can. Dancing on tables, bouncers angry, left quickly

I won’t go on but the night continued to pub 14, a couple were closed and a couple we were refused entry into. Night ended with alot of (play) fighting in the student bar, lots of rugby tackling, lots of snakebite and lots and lots of shouting. general we fucking owned that place, dominated the whole bar. really nice, good work LADS.

All in all a great night, disclaimer, its a student area, this happens all the time, we are not bastards and are not all wankers all the time. Just some of the time. Who need a blowout before exam period.

Anyway i have spent 40 hours in the library this week (10 hour days FTW) so back i go, i shall re-emerge in about 10 days.

I was going to do a 2k post and show everyone how successful I had been recently. Well I doom switched myself before I even started. Dropped 1k yesterday (10 BI’s) which is the most I have lost in a 24 period. It is only 10 BI and my red line wasn’t that bad, i ran badly (W$SD <40). I will move on and grind it back.

In more interesting news it was my housemates birthday, so I am about to embark on the Fallowfield (student area) 18, 18 beverage consuming houses in about 2km sq. Last time we did this I bailed at about 14. Cos I’m a lightweight. My housemate walked out of the 16th at about 9 o’clock in the evening, across the pelican crossing and was sick everywhere, in front of all the traffic. He had just had a diesel as well; wish I had seen the driver’s faces. There are a lot of rules in our drinking, so if you want to get involved do but come prepared. Firstly you cannot say the word M-I-N-E. If you do it’s 10 press ups, wherever you are, whatever time. Trains, clubs and funerals count. If you don’t do them within 5 minutes they double, and so on. Obviously international drinking rules apply (no pointing, names, swearing, and the pint within a finger’s distance of the edge of the table, the thumb rule and save the queen game and obviously you cannot say the word D-R-I-N-K) If you slip up you have to drink 2 fingers. Also the ‘can you handle game’, effectively if someone says that followed by a challenge you have to do it. Last night a guy was asked if he could handle jumping up and heading the disco ball thing in the club they went too, he did, took a ridiculous leap, nailed it full on and it shattered everywhere: P. Another is the tell her, told her game, which I hope you are familiar with. Basically if you say ‘that girl looks rough’ and you don’t finish the sentence with SHAZZAM and as soon as you have finished someone says tell her, you have to go and tell her. Gets really awkward and funny. Last night apart from dropping a G (balla I can now say I have done this), we were playing drinking darts, a mixture of tenants, Smirnoff ice and amaretto. Got quite messy and ended in a mayonnaise and ketchup fight, we need a cleaner I think. There’s also the ‘rise’ game, basically making people answer really stupid questions that everyone already knows the answer too, if you ‘rise’ and give the answer, more ridicule+ drinking. Finally for banter my housemate has to do the worm in every pub, next to the bar. This is because he fails massively at doing the worm, hilarity ensues.


Cannot think of any more, sure there are, will be some, so can you handle it? If you can ill see you in Fallowfield in 30 mins. Get involved



also more music, something different this time though:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmBeqZf_caQ&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqNTstE5Da4


not a new band, i have been to see them 3 times and always put on a good show

quick update, i am very busy at the moment with university work. i have chosen to take no exams, hence i have a crazy amount of hand ins and presentations to do. i have a hand in next week and then 4 essays in 2 weeks, FML. But i will be free till Feb after Dec 18th so swings and roundabouts. i havent played much poker but i did go round to Palmers to play, as usual i dont cncentrate and i dropped ~4 BI straight away. i was rather cross, Palmer kicked me out to have phone sex with his missus and so i went home bout 1 and played through until 5ish, and grinded it back, ship the control IMO. Will post graphs when i am home, library as usual now, need to work now to watch the NFL later. On a side note COD:MW2 is a disgustingly good game and that is taking some of my time as well. Finally i rewarded myself with my first cashout of stars, i put $600 in at xmas and now have a nice roll so i took some out and might get a couple of screens/PS3. Or continue to be a life nit and fill up my ISA. :)

also more music, i discovered this song of a COD montage, it's dubstep but dont be put of it's a banging choooonn. go on click the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy2TOdvr8QY

Update with some empirical evidence. heres my last 10k hands, 8k at 50nl and 2k at 100nl and i am really pleased with the results. i have bitched and whined for the last two months but finally stopped bitching and went and worked at it and have (small sample i know) had some success. onwards and upwards and hopefully i can crush 100nl.

looking forward to blackpool this weekend, ill probably win the live donkament side event. props to palmer for taking me as my car is still dead.

thought id leave people with four choooons i like, something different, tell me what you think. i know most of you wont like it but meh, i enjoy it, great to go out to as well as to grind to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt2xd8mWMJg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq5GdutCRo8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-zyNCzP1bs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T9BxMnOteI
(my favourite album of all time)

quick update before bed. went to scouse land tonight, lol@result+performance+atmosphere but i didn't have the last laugh as my car died on the way back, cracked fuel pipe or some shit. Hopefully can be fixed before Blackpool. what a stupidly long journey to see two second rate teams.

FML

Don't worry fan(s) i have purchased a dongle so i am back online. i have nearly played my 10k hands, which i will then take stock of and inspect my red line, its looking rosy though *touches wood(y)*. really busy week at uni, have presentation on Thursday and as Wednesday is golf day in my house i will have to work 9-5 tomorrow, gash. going to anfeild tonight as my mates dad said if i drove him i could have a ticket for £20 and as a sport lover i snapped him off. am looking forward to seeing the famous old stadium, though obviously a Monday night vs the brummies prob not the best atmosphere/game but meh. staying with sport i was very disappointed with England over the weekend, no cutting edge in the final third, exactly the same as Utd vs Chelski.

On poker a hand i played, do you guys and gals consider this spewey?

http://www.thehandconverter.com/hands/359038

basically i don't want to call as i am OPP, his 3bet is massive, is getting this in 150BB deep OK?

back to work, if anyone wants a sweat any time just PM me, I'm always keen.

See you lads and laddettes at Blackpool :)

FML, BT have cut me off. am updating from uni library, so i obviously wont be playing any poker soon. Oh well uni work to concentrate on.

Graphs and Monies

Ok so a little update, with some empirical evidence. small sample i know but i am really pleased and am actually not running that well (W$SD), though my WTSD is lowish (sample size i think)

In other news i got 11 questions correct on University challenge, ship it.


onwards and upwards. i want to play another 5k at 50nl to make sure i have got it cracked and then back to try 100nl

Update number duex. Well I haven’t really played too much since we last spoke, having had my first hand in on Friday 30^th and generally being busy. The essay was a critical article review on two authors who discuss social policy in the UK post 1970. To be honest it was quite dull and reasonably hard trying to condense each argument and find room to critically analyse both commentators. I am also struggling with some group work; with 2 random’s I was assigned to. One guy hasn’t done any reading-claiming Wikipedia is his source and the other is a crazy Irish girl who is more unorganised than me. This equals fail. I am sure we will do something in the end but its tedious unmotivated and lazy people seem to gravitate towards me.

Sport wise I am enjoying the NFL season although the titans are 1-6. Norwich are flying high and Man Utd bounced back from an appalling performance vs the scourcers. Good luck to them in making the Europa league. The most interesting thing will be the rugby internationals coming up, JW is back and playing well for Toulon, but with so many forward injuries I think we will struggle to make any inroads at all.

Poker wise I have not played that much, getting in around 25k hands last month. I think I have finally turned the corner though and will take another prolonged shot at 100nl. I will post graphs etc later but now is not the time.

In other news BT have cut my house off as I forgot or they buggered my direct debit up and so we know have to pay for the contract and then re set another up. I hate BT so much. I don’t quite know how our internet is working but it is, I’m not complaining, although it is very slow.

I have decided to start a blog to channel my need to articulate all things that are poker to people that have some interest. My friends are bored of my ramblings, so I have decided to start uNL ramblings, hopefully becoming SSNL soon. I have called it uNL as I am shot taking at 100NL at the moment and do not consider myself a SSNL player yet. Anyhow, some background would be the polite way to kick of this blog.

I am a 22 year old student at Manchester University, studying Development and Politics and am in my third year of this course, although I am in my fourth year in Manc as I changed after a year from a Business Studies course and re did my first year. I hail from West London, went to boarding school and am very partial to Lily Allen. I have no tattoos. I did 3 A levels, Business studies, Art and Geography and then took a gap year, starting in the summer of 2005 and that’s when I found poker. Obviously being a fish I deposited on Party and played limit. Obviously I ran like Usian and thought I was Hellmuth, aka god’s gift to poker. Well I wasn’t and lost it all, deposited another $200 and being a life nit I really didn’t want too and could not afford to lose it again. So I read super system and Harrington on Hold em and they didn’t really help. I was playing a little bit on Poker Night Live and went for a meet up in the Gutshot, my first taste of some of the Eat my Stack crew. I used to frequent the Gutshot sporadically and enjoyed it there, especially as it was first taste of live poker and as baby faced 18 year old coped a fair amount of abuse but of course I gave it back. My favourite time being when a 40 something guy sat down and asked if it was past my bed time (6 pm). I replied I would leave when I bust him (shit chat I know but meh). I was in the £1/£1 game and was up a little. Over the next couple of hours I built my stack, while he built his though we didn’t really tangle, although the verbal needle continued. I had roughly £325 in front of me, my new friend had about the same. Onto the hand, I had KK UTG+1 I isolate raised the UTG limper up to £8. Great I thought but I then received 6 calls, not good. Flop comes and boom, k76. I bet out about two thirds of the pot and got smoothed by one of the pre flop callers. My new friend then roars pot and my heart rate hits the roof. I tank and then re-raise and he insta shoves. I snap faster than Hellmuth in high stakes poker when he gets owned by Barry. He smiles and says, your aces are no good kid, go to bed and turns over k6. I may have slightly slow rolled him and although the dealer made my heart jump by putting out a turn 6, the river bricked and I raked in the largest pot of my career.

Over the next year my addiction changed to World of Warcraft, pushing poker aside. I managed to kick the MMOPRG drug in 2008 and needed something to fill my time and went back to poker. I cashed out of party and signed up for stars and put $600 on the site, my plan being to play SnG’s to grind my bankroll up. Over December and January I played roughly 1000 SnG’s and they crushed m soul. I made $ but wow its dull, so decided to move to cash. I quickly got bored of FR and moved to 6-max, I was playing 25nl at the time, with a bankroll of roughly 2k. Again I made money and moved up to 50nl and whilst having red line fail I consistently beat that level. I became sidetracked by the offer of a stake at 1/2 and 2/4 limit by a uni friend. Long story short, I ran quite bad and lost 1k. Back to no limit and I slowly grew my bankroll, whilst shipping 1.3k in a donkament which was much needed after a 3 week road trip in the states, from San Fran to Vegas. Now I am taking a 10BI shot at 100nl and after a lovely 6 Bi session down I am just under 4 Bi down. I have made some bad call downs; although as to how bad they are in the long run I’m not sure. Obviously I ran badly like everyone always does but I hope to stick it out and become a reg there in the run up to Xmas. This blog will hopefully be a medium for steam to be blown off, progress to be charted and the general life of a student be mused over by my elders and betters.

Oh and TLDR J