Darn River

Linux, Mac OS, Windows in all flavors.  As Microsoft’s iron grip on the operating system market softens and breaks, gambling sites turn away from software downloads and try to reach the largest audience across the most platforms they can.

For poker no download options are increasing.  as flash and java become more popular as a vehicle for bringing rounders their favorite games, users are freeing themselves from the desk and taking to smartphones, netbooks and tablets to get their card groove on.

Security is no longer an issue with these venues as the back end of these systems becomes more robust and full featured.  Players can play for real money across all platforms without fear of security lapses from the server side of the applications.  These systems should grow in popularity as more people break free of the old mold in the computer world.

Finally, I return to Darn River.  This blog always seems to get shuffled out of my daily activities first.  I do have more responsibilities at Holdem Poker Chat, but really, this does not take that much time.  I am just lazy, forgetful, or both.  It is both.

Anyway, how is everything?  after binking my first tournament in the Perfect 10 Challenge at Ultimate Bet, I can’t even seem to get 10 qualifying scores put together.  Granted, I am not playing every tournament, but you would think I could cash maybe just a few more of the ones that I do play.

I have to focus on my play a bit more than I have been.  I think my play has become automatic and wooden which makes me easy to avoid in a tournament.

Usually I get lazy with the posts here when I am doing poorly at poker.  that is not the case this time, so it must be general sloth.  I have been doing Ok at poker, steadily increasing the roll, although I did drop $50 yesterday.

I played well and got the money in good yesterday, just sometimes variance piles up all together.  I am unconcerned as I have been succeeding  OK except for that one day setback.  I am planning another run at  Full tilt Poker MiniFTOPS coming up next week.  The last one almost destroyed my Full Tilt roll.  We shall see if this one can have a better result.   And, maybe, just maybe I might post here more often than every 2 weeks or worse.

Though I am not up to my former play level, I am beginning to make progress on the bankroll front.   Sunday I managed to cash in every buyin that I entered.  I only entered three and none cost over $6 so my +$80 was ok.  Sadly, I will remember the day for coming up 10 places short of a trip to Ireland.

Players Only had a gold card satellite.  For an 8H gold card, you could get into a game with 20 seats to their Irish Open Weekly Final.  The seats were a $268 ticket, so I was pretty stoked about qualifying.  There is no cash conversion of these tickets, so you must play the event.  I got whacked 13th out of 91 or so.  top 3 got a $7,500 prize pool that included entry to the Irish Open Main Event.  My biggest setback was running KK into AA.  I think I should have been able to tell it was AA too.  Which only makes it worse that I couldn’t let go of KK.

Still, cashing all 3 buyins is not too bad.  I guess i will have to take that and move on

An old pizza shop employer used to call people “lazy like you never see”.  Thats me and the writing of this blog.  Actually, its not so much me avoiding or putting off writing it, it is more forgetfulness and general sloth.

Poker has been going OK.  No big scores but mostly profitable days.  I signed up for a new site that gives you 2 weeks of freerolls for a deposit.  I managed to get $60 off those freerolls at FeltStars Poker.  A few other scores and my $50 deposit is now a healthy $164.

FeltStars wants to be big.  they have a big championship thing coming in March.  I have the cash to play it, so we shall see what happens.  So, recap.  February so far, not bad, not great.

Lately I have been playing in the under $10 multi-table tournament arena.  After forays higher, it seems that this may be my natural area of play.  Time will tell on that since I still intend to move up if the results show it as advisable.

Yesterday I ran about eight small tournaments.  total buyin was $23 or so.  My profit from them all combined was $66 roughly.  I can live with that for now I guess.  I do need to pursue the big opportunities when they are present, however.

I plan to take a shot at the $109 buyin $50,000 guaranteed that runs on Lock Poker at the end of the month.  I won the ticket, so no pressure of a bankroll variety.  I feel that i need a few more wins to compel me to move back up where I was during August and September.

I managed a late surge to finish January up $300 or so.  I finally won an open tournament with over 500 players too.  Always good for the confidence that was sorely lacking previously.

I did not think i needed yet another merge Network site, but Felt Stars intrigues me.  They are a new site, but seem committed to becoming a force in the poker world.  already they plan their own online poker championship, World Championship of Internet Poker (WCOIP).  It won’t start till March but I am already coveting that Rolex!

Here is to hoping February gets me back on track poker-wise.  I cannot take much more of December/November running bad.

WBCOOB #2, Pot limit Omaha.

Second hand of this tournament some guy gets it all in with the nut low hand.  Might have been a good idea to open the lobby and find out that it is just omaha, not omaha hi/lo 8.

My table is pretty loose.  pre-flop raises every hand.  I am thinking a lot of them did not know it was Omaha and are just jamming the chips.  Should make for some fun and probably frustrating “he called with that” moments at least.

I would wish everyone good luck, but I would not mean it.  Good Luck Me!

Ha!  I fooled PokerStars into thinking a was a “real” blogger.  They have allowed little old me into the WBCOOP.   Look out pauly and chops, here comes the unpronounceable lkport!  The WBCOOP is the World Blogger Championship of Online Poker and begins January 25, 2010 exclusively on PokerStars.

Bloggers from all around the world (and me) will be competing for tickets to SCOOP events over a six day period.  SCOOP is the Spring Championship of Online Poker and is a big deal, way the heck out of my bankroll level.  Or it would be if my bankroll had a level.  I guess zero is kind of a level.  Anywho, look for me to spew chips at PokerStars while spewing words about the experience right here all during the WBCOOP events.

Look, I even know how to copy and paste the schedule!

and then the big finish:  2010 WBCOOP Main Event takes place January 31 at 15:00 ET.

Oh yeah the name.  well it really stands for a place in New Hampshire called Lakeport.  It is not even a town or a city, it is more of an area of a city.  People call me Ell-Kay, people call me Port.  Some think the first letter is an “I” since I am too lazy to capitalize the “L”.  I am not too picky about what I am called, and of course i get called much worse than anything resembling my name quite frequently.  I guess to be a big time blogging celebrity type, I should have picked a name that was less obscure.  oh well, I have used this name online since 1996, I do not think changing it now would be wise.

Enough about my weird name.  The WBCOOP begins!  Good luck me, no good luck to the rest of you word spewing egomaniacs.

Football!  Who cares?  There is poker to play.  The ship need to be righted after two uninspired days featuring some classic poor play.  Situational awareness has to be my focus.  Playing like a robot won’t get you too much in the way of profit.

I have a decent slate planned today.  nothing too ambitious.  The highest risk buyin will be $22 in MiniUBOC 7.  Tomorrow starts the WBCOOP on PokerStars.  I want to represent myself well in that, so focus and situational awareness need to be fine tuned today.

Oh, and I think the two home teams maul their opposition today.  the Colts probably destroy the Jets especially.