Right ok, so we have some updatge to go through then.

I will start with how I am feeling right now.

I think my love for the game and willingess to improve has nevr been stronger. I have been really happy with the way my game has been progressing after a good 8 months out of poker, I think I have settled back in very nicely.

I had a really good break from the game during the time I spent in London. It wasn't as though I felt I needed a break, it just sort of happened.

Anyway, I have been back and playing for a nearly 3 months again now and made a nice amount.

I have been able to pay for my websites to be finished/created and I am investing in them on the marketing side now.

It's kind of cool to see them finally progessing. I started to look at the stats today and see that my hard work, along with the people involved with them is starting to pay off.

I am in the process now of getting a few poker tools created for the sites. They are standard, but a hand converter for forums, hand simulator and a rakeback calculator.

I have been watching a lot of poker on TV recently as well. High stakes poker is the absolte nuts. Probably the best poker show on TV at the moment. I have been watching some poker superstars and WSOP 2005 re-runs since I setup my wireless net and sitting in the frontroom. I have been watching Negreanu's blog as well and listening to the circuit, they rock my world a lot too.

Ok, so a bit of poker updatage. I think I am finally done with Party Poker. I have to say thank you to party. I first started out playing for real money on a Crypto skin, but then moved over to Eurobet for rakeback, then PokerNOW, then back to eurobet. I have played on Party by far the most out of all the sites. I always liked the big fields for MTT's and that there are always a lot of games going, so you had a lot of table selection options.

There are two main problems with party though for me now, well three but one is minor.

1) The introduction of the monster promotion. This is a really bad deal in my opinon. Yeah if you get a shot at the tournament you are laughing, but realistically the chances for any player are going to be pretty slim. Since they implemented this there has been numerous amounts of server crashes and now the majority of the tables seem to be monster tables. That's fine, except they take an extra 50c in rake which is terrible. The non monster tables seem to be very tight as well.

That is the straw that kind of broke the camels back.

2) Lack of rakeback. So, I decided to run my stats into my RB calculator and to be honest, I have decided I can't go without making that kind of money. It's free money and even though Party has some advantages, I like the interface and the many games, but it's all about the BENJAMINS and the money far outweighs the advantages party has to offer.

So, where to go? Well, I had a look around. I didn't really feel the Prima network, I didn't really like it, so I decided back to Crypto and I am going to try it out at Sun Poker on my rakeback deal, I should be there by tomorrow.

So now I finally get round to talking about poker at the tables. I played in both the Party Million and the Pokrstars Million. I busted in both when the blinds were high, I flopped top pair and was slowplayed by aces.

I have a backer now, to play in the bigger tournaments. Truth is, I really have been too tired to play at 2am for say 5 or 6 hours. My current poker sessions have been taking it out of me at the moment. I might try and get a few played at the weekend.

The other two tournies to note are two rebuys. One, I busted 2 places till the money. I had played fine and got my stack up well above avrage after the rebuy period, then my cards really dried up. I probably played too tight if I am honest, and I ended up making a silly move with KT in the SB aainst the bb who had AK. I blame tiredness, I had played a big session at cash and then straight into a tourney for 3 or so hours was rough.

Tonight was the other rebuy and I didn't have as many chips as I would have liked after the rebuy, but I was able to do a lot of stealing and got myself to a nice position. I ended up busting at the second break. I raised with KQ, a guy pushed with AJs and I decided to call with a lot in the pot. That crippled me, then someone open raised in LP I decided to push with my monster 73s and he called and showed TT, I turned a flush, he rivered a bigger flush, oh well.

Ok, so cash tables have been very heavily on my mind. I decided I was messing about in too many tournaments and needed to get back into the long sessions of cash games play. So that's what I did.

I have been averaging 1500 hands a day at No Limit 4 tabling. It hasn't been going overly great, but not too bad. I decided to get back into NL after I started to run real bad at FL and getting crushed. I never usually tilt, but it was a weekend and I started to get crazy raising any two then sort of slapped myself in the face and re-grouped, decided to give the FL 6 max a rest.

So I have played around 6.8k of NL, with my BB/100 being 7.10, VPIP 12.91, PFR 6.28 (eek), WSD 18.75 and W$SD 50.52.

It will be interesting to see how these change when I move over to the new site, but my PFR and W$SD should increase.

I haven't done a stats check on NL for a long long time, so I am going to have to find some PT stats over at 2+2 and see how they match up.

It's too early to start analyisng hands and whatnot, but I did find myself making the common mistake of overplaying my TPTK and Overpair hands.

For example, I have KK, raise, 2 calls. flop comes 9 high rainbow. SB checks, another guy checks, I bet pot and the SB check raises the pot. Now this to me seemed a little weird to me. I have done this before, but at the limit I am playing (NL$50, I am not just sitting a NL100 with all those monster tables) I figured if he had a set e would surely just call and try and keep another guy in on a non threatening board. His raise did worry me, but it sniffed more of QQ/JJ/TT than it did of a set. Now why I called, I don't know.

I am not sure what a call in this spot is going to achieve. My thinking at this point is that it may slow him down. Two pair was out of the quesition, he wasn't that loose.

The turn is a blank and he now bets 1/2 the pot. This is where the alarm bells needed to start ringing. How can he check raise me on that non threatening flop, what exactly can he have. Then I started to figure a set may be the case here, but as I did, I found myself pushing in with KK, he called with bottom set and I get stacked.

It's a typical overpair v set hand, but I missed the warning on the flop with a check raise. I am not saying I will always fold with an overpair to a check raise, but that one I should have. Now, I am not being results orientated, but I had the inkling on the flop and dismissed it. On the turn it slapped me in the face but I couldn't laydown KK. I am going to try and cut out those sort of mistakes out of my game. I didn't have a read on the guy, but from his PT stats, I should have recognised he isn't doing that with an overpair. Oh well, it didi some good, it reminded me that I need to stop overplaying TPTK and overpairs. I did cut that out of my game back last year when I was playing NL full handed, so will do so again.

I had another cool hand where it was SB v BB, I have AJ and raise the BB, he calls, Flop is blank, I bet pot, he minraises, so I push and he calls with KK and I get stacked. Oops.

I had a set v set with me lower as well which wasn't too good. I managed to pull it back around though with an evening session of about 500 hands. I pretty much got slapped in the face with the deck. KK v AK, AA, v KK, set v set and a straight beating two pair, so I made everything I lost today back and then some.

Wow, I must apologise for this probably being the longest post about relatively nothing, but it is helping me wind down so who cares.

On another note, I am a bit disappointed I seemed to have dropped Omaha like it's hot at the moment. The main reason is because I decided to really concentrate on getting back to NL full handed and getting back up in stakes and boosting my BR, so that comes first. Once that is complete I will concentrate on my other games and get them up to scratch as well.

I think that's about it really. I may actually go over this blog post tomorrow and edit it a bit, I know it's going to be way too long.

So, as of now I am really looking forward to changing sites and seeing how I go there, earning rakeback, the progress of my websites etc etc.

What I am going to do over the next few weeks I think is actually get a few decent hands posted up here and having a discussion on them. I seem to be able to ramble aimlessly on how I am doing, but never get down to really getting into hand analysis hardcore. I think perhaps what my problem is, is that I have played so many hands that not that many stick out anymore, and I don't really get myself into many difficult decisions, whish is a good thing for my game, but a bad thing for my blog.

I am sure I do get myself into decisions I shouldn't have to, but don't seem to notice them too much. Anyway, I am going to put myself out and find a few hands to digest and hopefully start getting some feedback from peeps.

Right, that's about it. I am looking forward to pressing save and seeing how long this is.