Night ramblings/ The story of my carding past

 

(warning: long post ahead!!)

Just sat here on nights bored so thought I would write a blog post. We do seven night shifts and then have seven days off. Although it can be a bit tiring as the shifts are eleven hours in length and on some nights you have to press wall “buttons” every half hour which are located in various areas to show you have been there as opposed to sleeping all night.!!

 Poker wise, towards the back end of last month I messed around trying a few new things out with my game and hopefully I can stick with these things that I have decided to implement  for the rest of the month and grind some hours at the tables throughout August. I have again spent some time just watching professional player Frosty012 playing and am trying to implement some of the things I have observed and the advice he has given me (via the comments on his blog) into my game.

I have only managed 5 hours of play so far this month due to my shifts but seem to be playing pretty solidly (stats wise) although at the time of writing I am 2.5 buy-ins down after about 5k hands, which basically means nothing over such a small sample size as if you take a couple of coolers (very unlucky hands) out of the equation I would be in profit. I am just going to try and stick with all of these concepts and game play choices for the whole of the month and assess the results come the 31^st August.

I am only playing NL$10 at the moment with a bankroll of $1150’ish although if I get it over $1250 (50 buy-ins) by the start of September and feel I am playing well I will move up to NL$25. The main thing is no pressure and even better news for me is that Pokerstars are running a “VIPMADNESS” scheme this month whereby you can achieve a VIP status 10 times faster than usual, so I will easily hit Platinum Star status by the end of the month and keep it until the end of September which will mean a lot more bonus $$$$.

For the last two years i have been meaning to write a post about how I first got into playing cards, and seeing as I am sat here with time to kill I thought I might as well do it now…….so here goes.

I joined the British Army when I was 18 years old (1995) and stayed in it for three and a half years and it was during this time in my life that I first got a liking for cards. When I used to come home on leave there was always a 3-card brag game going on each night in the village local pub, it was nothing hardcore just a group of mates playing 20p bets to start with, although it was NL and sometimes things got slightly carried away.  I will mention my mates who were regulars in the game and who are all still mates today as I know they read this blog occasionally ( Tay, Neil, Ste, Browny, Ashy, Ian, Baz).

Other people came and played from time to time and for a while the game became so regular that we used to take over the small pool room at the back of the pub and use the pool table as a carding surface. It was back in the day when you could smoke in pubs and that seemed to add to the atmosphere and I am sure there were a few cigars smoked back then by us all.  We always played well after closing time, so much so that on one night the Landlord locked up the pub and went to bed. However it didn’t take him too long to hear voices downstairs and creep down thinking he was getting burgled only to find us lot still playing.

I tended to do very well at 3-card brag and usually made a small profit as it was obvious after a bit if you kept going blind (not seeing your hole cards), which meant you paid only half the bet of a player who had seen his cards you tended to end up more in profit. Also if you had more money you could afford to bluff other players off hands more, which worked ok as I had a job and most of the other lads were students.

 However I came a cropper on one occasion as another lad, called Brian, who was older than us and who was also working and had more money always used to go blind and ramp up the stakes at every given opportunity. During one session I ended up with a hand that spiralled into us putting £50 in each only for me to lose. 15 years ago when I was only getting £550 per month wages, losing £50 in one hand hurt a bit.

However whilst not on leave my army mate Peachy took me for my very first visit to a casino, in Manchester, and I loved it straight away.  Beginners luck really kicked in for me and I finished about £150 in profit from the roulette table.

After about a year in the army I was posted to Northern Ireland to a place called Lisburn, which was to be my home for the next two years. There was still trouble in Northern Ireland back then and there wasn’t very many places we could go to socialise outside the camp and we tended to do most of our drinking in the NAAFI run bars inside the camp.

 My camp/barracks in Lisburn, Oct 1996, bombed by the IRA two days before i arrived.....phew!!!

I shared a room with four other lads and for some reason our room became the Mecca of high stakes carding action.  Our Sergeant was a big time gambling hustler (also an ex jockey) and the game we played was shoot-pontoon. This game as anyone who has played it will verify can quickly become high stakes. Our Sergeant, and a couple of us to some degree used to almost press gang drunken squaddies up to our room to play late into the night and these games where fairly big compared to peoples wages. At that time most of us were getting about £750 per month (you used to get extra for being in a dangerous theatre of operations) and soldiers where sometimes losing half their months wages in one night.

Now I used to pride myself that I was always sensible and strict on bankroll management and I used to play and bet small and take advantage of the bigger bets going down and the craziness of the other players. In shoot-pontoon there is always a banker and in this position you have the potential to make more money. However in this game when you won the bank, some of the hustlers would offer to buy it off you for £5 or £10 in order to win more money off other players.

I always bet small, made money off selling the bank when I got it and hardly ever had a losing session. I was happy making £20-£50 per session playing like that rather than win/ lose £250+. These games were going every weekend and with drunks getting press ganged into the games and other degen squaddies losing £hundreds per night there was always loads of profit to be made.  We even used to have afternoon games at the British Legion club in Lisburn town centre although the pots didn’t get quite as big as everyone was a lot less drunk as it was early on.

When I came out of the army I ended up in a shitty security guard job for a year or so before I got my current civil service job and a few of us (Neil, Ste, and my bro) used to hit the casino in Southport about four or five times a week. I think our record was about 3 different times in one day!!!

None of us had much money but we loved hitting the roulette and blackjack and spent hours trying to come up with systems and methods to beat the tables until finally we realised it was a waste of time. Each of us had good times/bad times and loads of laughs in those regular visits to the casino. It still brings a smile to my face when I think of us all singing “oh no were off to the O (casinO)” in the back of my bros car on the way to Southport. Or my mate who firmly believed that “he was DUE (a big win)” every week.

For a while I was working in Southport (near to the casino) and I came up with a system where I would go into the casino and put a £25 chip on either red or black. If I won the first bet I would immediately cash in and leave, if I lost I would just keep betting £25 until I was £25 in profit and then cash in and leave. It worked a treat for weeks and I was starting to make more money doing this than my shitty security job and for a while I considered jacking the job in and just going to the casino. However one afternoon it came crashing down as I didn’t stick to my rule of leaving as soon as I was £25 in profit and I ended up losing about £400 in an afternoon which was more than half a months wages…….I was pretty sick and gave up the scheme!!!!!

 poker game at my house: oct 2005

Into 1998 we were still playing 3-card brag when the film Rounders came out and this was like the shining light to us all, although no-one knew how to play poker. It didn’t take us too long to figure it out though and then NL holdem had taken over for ever!!

Unfortunately I didn’t quite have the success to start with as I did with brag or pontoon as it was my mate Neil who quickly figured out aggression was the way forward and he was really hard to beat and was definitely the biggest winner of our games back then.  With my mate Ste being the tightest player amongst us, I think his opening bet range was like the top 5 hands and that was it!!

Poker game at Tays: July 2005

We played poker at every given opportunity and every Thursday we played in the afternoon at one of our homes knocking back cans of ale before going into town, legend days (if you are reading this boys let me know if you fancy it again at mine for an afternoon of cards as a slice of nostalgia, then into Liverpool).  We also used to do this (prob 1998-2001) on Ste’s uncles canal barge in Lancaster, get pissed all afternoon playing poker on the boat and then go into Lancaster and get stuck into the student girls!!!.  Again the saying “BOAT DRINKS” brings a smile to my face. 

Suddenly we found that poker had found its way onto the internet and we started playing $3 and $5 sngs on VC poker whilst all chatting on msn. Again my mate Neil did the best back then quickly turning $10 into about $700 or so in a couple of months. My mate Ste’s screen name on VC poker was “BOAT DRIMKS” as he miss-spelt “drinks” and you aren’t allowed to change it once submitted, nice one lad!!!  I don’t see Neil and Ste as often now which is a shame and I miss talking poker to them, I’m not even sure if they even play anymore.

 Another win for Rossi?!!: July 2005  (shit i have aged since this photo!!)

Once I met Mrs R and moved into my current house (2003) I continued playing online poker although not really getting anywhere but equally not putting that much time into it, football manager was still the most regular thing on my computer back then.

I  took poker a bit more seriously in about 2006/2007 and managed to turn $30 into about $3500 and was coolered out of a $16000 package for the 2006 EPT Monte Carlo, I really (stupidly)  thought I was destined to become a poker pro. However the careful bankroll management that I had always practised in the past got lost somewhere along the way and over the last couple of years I managed to lose those winnings and more besides. I constantly changed things, became greedy, chased stuff and haven’t been patient.  On the occasions I have been patient I have won but overall I am currently down from playing online poker (being honest!!).

 However if I can conquer my demons and return to that discipline/patience of those early days  I should be able to grind out profit each month and eventually/hopefully return my lifetime poker results to $$ EVEN and maybe slightly up!!!  (go back to the top of this blog!!!). 

The game aint over yet……………………………………!!!

 Here is a video i found from the poker game at my house in 2005: