Trip report in prague, 28/03/08

So, I get up at 11am and miss the free breakfast, I played internet poker until 3am which made me a little exhausted. We end up getting a taxi to the irish bar at 1:15pm as it is the place to meet for the shooting range. I eat an overly priced sausage and cheese sandwich and just drink a coke as I'm probably going to end up pissed by 6pm. The young attractive lady running the trip meets us in the bar and introuduces us to the other 2 brits that are joining us at the shooting range, We learn that these are two cool guys, fortunatly they weren't students as they are generally a weird species.

The taxi ride takes 20-30 minutes over the cobblestone roads. If you have never been to Prague, all the roads are made out of cobblestone's and it's a very bumpy ride! The driver was mad, infact they are all crazy here, you don't resist putting the seatbelt on.

We reach the firing range and are introduced to the first gun, the sniper rifle. I have no idea what type of sniper rifle it is, but it looks kinda cool. It is really easy to use, and have a target approx 50metres away. We have a target about the size of a cd, the centre scores 5 points and the outside scores 4 points. The round fired 5 shots and I managed to score a very nice 24 points, just 1 point dropped! Out of all the guns this easilt has the least recoil but accuracy was tough, the scope moved a ton from the slightest movement, fortunatly after playing Call of duty 4 i learned to hold my breath a few seconds before firing, lol.

Picture- Me with the sniper rifle.


Second up, the AK47. The expert told us in his best English "VERY LOUD, very powerful!"

I must admit I was a little nervous, as you look down the scope the target in the distance (once again about 50m away) goes very blurry. I fire my first three bullets and my friend with the binoculars says "10, 10, 10" after this my confidence was pretty high and I fired the remaining 7 bullets pretty fast. The gun ends up 45 degrees in the air after every bullet, this on full automatic must be incredibly difficult to control. I ended up with a score of 96 out of 100 which is very good In my opinion.

Me with the AK47 kalashnikov.



Third gun up, the .44 Magnum!

This gun looked super cool, unlike the first 2 guns you take a standing stance. We are taught how to grip this small pistol and exactly how to aim. I had an advantage not being first up to fire this gun as I noticed all bullet holes were above the "5" mark on the target from the first person firing the magnum. When it was my go I couldn't believe the recoil, the target was only around 25m away but I must have been aiming a good 1/3 of a metre below the highest scoring target. This clip was only 6 bullets and I managed another decent score of 26 out of 30, out of all the guns if I wanted a gun for personal use it would have been this one. It was very light, fast to load and fucking powerful.

Me with the magnum.



The final gun- pump sotty.

This gun looked very meaty, I was told this is a very powerful gun and can actually do your shoulder some damage. I was a little nervous but i gotta say this was the easiest gun to use, out of the 4 of us we had 3 shells each and all hit the target (a tin can 25m away) every time. If you stood square to the target with your feet together using this gun, no two words about it, you would fall on your ass.


My friend Will with the pump shotty.



So, the results are in, and the 2008 Prague multi weapon accuracy heavy weight champion is, no other than-

[size=18]Dan "lucky_scrote" Carter[/size]



My friend Will isn't the best loser, it took me some persuasion to get him to take this picture for me :D.

Anyhow, I am going out for some free booze in the casino. Czech beer is the (second) best!


A few more pictures for your pleasure:




http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5421/iphonepics043cj7.jpg
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/7858/iphonepics060cn0.jpg
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/9978/iphonepics061pv1.jpg


-Dan "lucky_scrote" Carter

Results of playing 30 tables.

Fun, exausting and an experience I guess.

SNG's played: 30
Time taken: 57 minutes
Mis-clicks: 0
Time-outs: 0
Stakes: $16'ers
Profit -$88.50.

I would definitly say that was fun, was definitly an experience anyhow lol, I think I could do 16 tables at the same time, but they would have to start at much different times as I was 4 handed in nearly all of them at one point!

I lost a few crucial races at the end, it would have spun it back to around -$20 or so but meh!

Video coming soon, and no...it won't be part of the poker school me thinks.

I play bad too often.

I don't know how I get away with playing good live so consistently because online I'm really rubbish. I had a losing week last week of around $6k. I basically lost around $1k every day, my SNG strategy is awful and I think I am going to drop down to the $100 games if I don't start playing well soon again.

On a better note, around midnight tonight I am going to play 30 (thirty) $11 sng's on partypoker. I am doing this just for the crack really but I am donating all money to charity, I don't know which charity yet, perhaps I could get a Nintendo Wii(if i win enough) for a childrens hospital or something I dunno, will probably end up being a sega mega drive the way things are going haha.

Details on my nutso sng challenge is here: http://www.gambling.co.uk/forums/vbookie-betting-events/41190-lucky-scrote-playing-30-thirty-sit-goes-simultaneously-how-much-profit.html

Gl at the tables,

Dan "lucky_scrote" Carter

Ughhhhhhhh

So last week was awesome, Sunday I made $3.5k in sng's and $12k in tourneys


This week on the other hand....

It started on Monday, I think I didn't cash in any sng I played, and I played about 15-20. I don't think I played especially bad at all, just variance has it's own ways sometimes; So that's -$2k

The next day, something similar happens, I cash in nearly nothing and lose another $2k. Of course I am playing worse today because I am beginning to believe that I am not playing correctly.

Day 3 and I lose another $1k, this is beginning to get old and I'm now laying off how much I play this week.

I'm going to Prague on Wednesday with a friend for a couple small tourneys, so I will treat this more like a holiday, hopefully I can make $2k in sng's by then to make me feel good.

-Dan

Finally!

So last night I said I would update on how I did last night, I wanted to grind out some money in the SNG's and see how my 3 tourneys would go.

The High rollers on poker.co.uk ended early, SB vs BB I raised it up with 88 and donkey villain calls me. Flop 810K, bet call. Turn 10, Bet raise allin, he has Q10 and rivers a ten. This was pretty early on too which pissed me off, but nevertheless I got my head down grinding on the SNG's before the two tourneys began on stars and party.

The stars tourney started early (Daylight savings) which was cool because I hate the late starting times in these tourneys, theses are the only 3 tourneys worth playing because all the "big" guarantees are 8pm onwards and quite frankly, I don't want to be awake until 6am every time I get deep. I made an agreement with myself about summer last year that I would always be in bed by 3am and be up by around midday.

The problem with all poker players is that they are lazy, you can end up sleeping in the day and up all night, and honestly, it gets old fast. Ever since I improved my sleep and eating patterns I felt a lot better, was socialising with my friends more often and actually playing better poker!

Anyway back onto the two biggies on party and stars...I doubled up with AA very early which is so awesome...when the blinds hit 300/600 you get a lot of short stacks with around 8k or so shoving, at this time you just stay patient and hope you pick up some kind of premium hand. Anyhow to cut it short, I got lucky about 3 times in this tourney and scraped into the money- I won two crucial races then sucked out on AK with AJ. Really If I'm going to use all my luckbox I want to at least go deep into the tourney. So I think I picked up $300 or so I don't remember.

The party tourney was great also, I doubled up early and won a lot of small pots, I do remember going short stacked after someone sucked out on me but it's a bit of a blur. I accumulated a lot of chips just before the money where I think I shoved about 15 hands in a row, it was the classic everybody times down to increase their chances of making the money; I was the biggest stack at the table so didn't bother even looking at my cards and just kept hitting the all-in button.

I'm so rubbish at remembering hands but I know that bores people anyhow, but I had double the average with 580k in chips with about 5 tables in when I picked up KK on the button. The only player with more chips than me made it 45k so I made it 145k to go. He flat called.

The flop was A102 and he led out for 75k. This is a very small bet and I didn't know what to make of it, well, I was in position with Kings and was prepared to call. The turn, a beloved king lol.

He checked and I ended up shoving my whole stack of 375k or so since the pot was well over 450k. He INSTA calls with AK which is pretty unfortunate for him, the only King in the pack hit. Still, he sucked out on the flop and I don't feel too bad (like I ever feel bad for anyone anyway).

I was then sat on just over 1M chips for a good 2 hours, infact when we went into the final table I had just under 1M. I really went card dead and couldn't bully the table since the chip leader was a complete donkey, difficult to push off any hands.






I ended up calling with KQo in the BB when I was down to 700k in chips with blinds at 50k/100k when the button (chip leader raised) His range was huge and I had to take a shot, he had A3 so it was pretty much a 50/50.

I busted 6th for $11.5k. I am happy that I've final tabled one of these biggies because its been 2 years since I have done.


Along with this, I grinded about $3k playing SNG's so all in all a VERY good night on partypoker. Hopefully I can turn my $24k roll on there into $30k by the end of the month.

-Dan "lucky_scrote" Carter

Goals are good...

For about the last 6 months I have struggled with internet poker, always trying to find a new game to keep me entertained until I realised that it is actually costing me money.

So I decided to be a little boring, deposit $10k on partypoker and just grind it out on the 200/350 sngs.

I am going to try and make $500 a day and will withdraw $10k each time I double the roll. I would say it is impossible to bust but I may have some boring long break even stretches.

To go along with the sng grindage I'm going to play a few Sunday tourneys including the High rollers on poker.co.uk and the two tourneys that start at 5:45pm on party/stars. I have gotten pretty deep a few times in the stars tourney, but you need to be incredibly lucky to cash big in a tourney with 2k+ players.

So, time to take some grinding seriously because If I wasn't sponsored live then this would be my living!

Anyhow, since I started grinding at sng's feeling comfortable that I actually have an edge for once, I've been enjoying online poker a lot more; I guess the fact I am travelling a lot over Europe at the moment helps keep the mind fresh.

I'll keep my blog up to date to see how the SNG grind goes.

It's been a while...

It's been a while, but honestly I didn't realise many people even read my blog, I have had a couple people in the past few weeks come up to me asking when this would be updated, so, here we are.

I have decided I am going to write more about experiences rather than hand histories as you can go to any blog to read about bad beats and brags; this is going to be more of an article if you wish. Speaking of articles I have written two for the WPT mag recently and although I spent some time on my first article on HU I think I did a pretty naff one to follow it up, my writing skills are not very good and I find it difficult to get my imagination onto paper sometimes.

I am writing this on a train on the way to Poland, this will be my fourth EPT and I am looking to repeat my performance from EPT Germany where I cashed 12th for €41k, I was very pleased, I played my best poker and was rewarded, not something you can get used to in poker unfortunatly.

One thing I must bring up is the intense poker schedule this spring, in the space of 7 weeks I am travelling away 6 times- London (last weeks GUKPT), EPT Poland, Irish open, Prague student open(travelling with a friend, more of a holiday if you wish), EPT Sanremo and some small tourney I qualified for online that takes place in Slovenia. I am so lucky to be doing all these things at such a young age doing what I enjoy.


So, I guess I should talk about online a little bit since I'm sure a few people wonder what I get up to in online poker since I'm so active live. ONLINE SUCKS. I have been fortunate to qualify for a couple of EPT's (Poland and Italy) otherwise I think I've been a steady loser the last 4 months or so, I had a bit of an upset last night in the Sunday warmup on stars when very deep (150 remaining) and lost the biggest pot of the tourney to a runner runner, yes I know I know, less bad beat stories so I won't go into it.
I've pretty much given up in online HU sng's, a bad run followed by a run a flux of good players meant that I was on the rail insted. I gave cash games another shot since I enjoy short sessions on the internet since I can get frustrated and bored a lot easier. I should link myself to this page the next time I attempt an online cash game- I AM A DONKEY AT CASH. It's pretty sad actually because it's how I built up my bankroll but with all the new software available to players at the moment it's coming to a point where there is virtually no decision making, you can literally get a computer to tell you what to do most of the time, what kind of skill is that? Clicking a mouse? I guess I'm no good at that then.
The only thing I seem to enjoy any more is MTT's and 10 handed sng's on certain sites (too many tough competetors on bigger sites such as stars and FTP). I guess at least you don't get table selection in these meaning you get some fish before all the sharks come and gobble them up. A software I recently got to learn about is where you boot it up and it automatically boots up as many tables as you wish on a certain software at certain stakes, it then sits you down at tables with the fish. Now think about it, this is going to lead all the intelligent players to the worst players meaning that these bad players will get beaten down with almost no hope. This is far worse in the long run because, in poker you need to have at least some hope to come back and give it another shot, but with such weak players getting destroyed so quickly, the overall playing field is getting stronger and stronger online. Alright rant over about how I suck at cash games online.
i have really enjoyed playing online tourneys on a sunday, I sit down at the computer at 3pm for my first tourney and my last registration for tourneys is usually 8pm, if I havn't tilted by then, I will play the later tourneys on stars. I have yet to hit a big online win since I first started in Jan 05 when I chopped the stars million for $102k. I have definitly got deep in a lot of sunday tourneys but just havn't taken advantage of this or just been a little unlucky. This can get frustrating at times as you don't get many chances like this. The variance in tourneys is unbelievable because they are so volatile, it sends a lot of good players broke because the bankroll required is huge. I think 200 buyins is needed when you take into account costs of travel, food, accomodation etc. Fortunatly I am lucky enough to have sponsers who pay for almost all my buyins and expenses, in return I give back a percentage, wear their clothing, play their site and help with the communioty a little so it's a win-win I guess.

Hope I havn't gone on too much and I shall bring updates on Poland If I get the time!

-Dan "lucky_scrote" Carter