In which I play MiniFTOPS Razz...

So Mulhuzz, why Razz?

Thanks for asking! Basically, I love Razz for the following reasons:

• It is a limit game, and limit games are super fun because there are so many people that simply don't understand the importance of saving bets or showdown value. They also don't understand the importance of simulated all in situations, but more on that later.
• Razz is a great game for strategy and requires far more thought than playing Hold Em, whether FL or NL. It is therefore, for me, more fun.
• I have a bigger edge in Razz than I do in Hold Em for lots of reasons. The chief of these being that I manage to avoid logic knots in Razz more than I do in Hold Em. This is because the average Hold Em player is, well, average, and the average Razz player is, well, terrible. This means that you can play Razz to a semi-decent standard and still be exceptional value in a game. Translation: there's a lot of dead money in Razz.

Why mini-FTOPS?

I played the $30+$3 mini-FTOPS Razz event because Andy 'KQ4EVA' Blair offered to stake me for it because I'd railed him as he crrrrrrrushed the Full Tilt nightly $2k Guaranteed Razz and repeatedly commented on how bad the players were. Obviously he only managed third because, well, blind squirrels and nuts, but the nice $800 cash from $24 was enough for him to spare me the $33 entry for this.


I haven't played Razz tournaments in years, except as part of the HORSE mix or so, but used to play a decent amount of Razz cash and still do, although the volume is somewhat lower than it used to be.

Anyway, to the tournament!

I set myself up in the office and connected the laptop to the big screen so I could rail a few other mini-FTOPS events whilst also concentrating fully on Razz. The game began at 3am here, so I was helpfully joined by my housemate to keep me company. Joerg is probably the best mixed game player I know, so it was great to have him for a line check from time to time (e.g. do I check-raise here or simply bet and hope to be raised?, etc). I'd also had a skype conversation earlier that day with one of the biggest FL pros in the world and we talked a little about strategy and such so I was feeling really well prepared.


Two hands in and I'd won my first pot (winning 3 more bets than I should have done!) and Joerg commented 'ok, this tournament is as good as shipped!'. Oh man I wish that were true! With over 1200 runners there was a lot to play for. For the first two hours I basically played perfect and built 3k starting chips up to 9.5k and I was really bossing the table. I also had a nice hand where i made the nuts (A-5) and the table idiot (having called with a semi ok draw on two streets made perfect-almost-perfect to end up with A234-6 - the second nuts, so I caught like 7 more bets than I should have done in that hand because we end up capping it on 7th of course.

Where it all goes wrong...

I'd love to show you hand histories and so but for some reason they don't save on my work laptop so I can't. I get massively coolered in a huge pot against a retard (a 5k pot when the average is also 5k at 200/400) when some guy finds his miracle one out deuce on 7th when he was basically drawing dead against my made nut 7. Somehow he manages to find the 65-low on the end though, somewhat improving his 965 made....sigh.


From then on out, I go completely card dead and then lose two more crucial pots as at least a 72% favourite. In my exit hand the guy doens't understand the concept of simulated all in at 300/600 where I have 1800 and get 3 small bets in on third and the rest in on 4th (this is what simulated all in means, I'm never, ever, ever, ever, folding) with 2357 and can't hold against 9357. I had the dude basically completely board locked but he managed to get there of course.

A Word on Limit Tournaments...

In limit tournaments, the midstages are by far the most important. At some point you'll play a pot for stacks because the average will almost never deviate from 8-10 Big Bets and you have to run good to survive in the middle stages. I felt I played pretty perfect (threw away one more bet than I needed to in one spot to be honest which was the only mistake I made) and the fact that i very quickly got to 2x or 3x the average meant that when I got coolered I still had a stack to get back into the game. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be and I busted in 568th spot someway off the bubble.


I did, however, outlast most of the FTP Red Pros, including David Singer which won Pads £100 because he's backed me against anyone in the field and his mate picked Singer. Unlucky, I crush Singer at Razz! :D :D :D At least someone won something from this tournament.

Now What?

I'm going to play more Razz because I'd forgotten two things:


1. How much I love the game and how much fun I have playing it.


2. How much of an edge I have against your average Razztard.


That's all for now folks, thanks for reading and thanks also to GeoKing, SamJ, Google and co for the rail. Sorry i couldn't give you a better sweat.


Gl at the tables,


--Huzz

In which I let a colleague do the bragging for me....

Need I say more......?

This video was shot yesterday up on the roof of our offices. Pretty informative too, whilst also being a major brag ;)

Enjoy!

--Huzz

In which I feel like a proper degenerate...

Recap of the weekend...
PokerStrategy.com 'Open' at Gala Casino
This sunday saw 40+ PokerStrategy.com staffers and some 20+ locals and friends of the company take to the felt for our Poker Open generously held at the local casino. I call it a PS.com open, and it kinda was. We'd (well, one of our Poker Experts) had organised the tournament, made it open for all, and demanded that we wear our red PokerStrategy.com T-shirts as a group.

It was like a sea of red and awesome fun. My tournament didn't go too super. I got seated on first table with 4 staffers and was OOP to all of them but banter was superb. I owned a couple of the fish for nice pots before losing a small one BvB vs Arjon one of our Dutch Community Managers. It was then time to move table where I open the button (2k starting chips, 15m clock, basically a shallow super turbo) with A7o to 425 (100/200) and get shoved on by a 1.5k stack (I have 4.2k) from the small blind. I make the standard call but can't hold vs 34s even though I have a straight draw and two overs on the turn. Sigh.

The very next hand, Philippe (cool guy I mentioned in previous blog) and I are drinking away when he shoves and I make the auto-reshove with 33. You need chips in this tournament and I know I'll have to win flips. He tables AK and I can't remain ahead on a 7585 board when the river brings another 8. Which was great, because the Card Room Manager called for it. The bastard!!! But anyway. that's pretty standard the way I run in Gib ;)

Competitive Slots...

Having found myself dumped outta the tournament I catch up with some of the lads who decide a round of competitive slots is in order. The rules are simple. Each player puts £10 in a slot machine, we all press at the same time and whoever is busto first loses and they buy the next round. For the first time in like forever I didn't lose at slots and was showing a healthy £29 profit plus the drink that Hannes bought me! ;)

Competitive Roulette...

Bored with competitive slots, we move on to competitive electronic roulette. Again, I win here by backing number 8 twice in a row at some point to book a healthy £56 profit.

Competitive Blackjack...

Sigh. Not really competitive because I was the only one playing and just to get rid of the £6 I had from roulette in chips. Down £6, needless to say.

Competitive Shortstacking...

We now decide, Graham, Hannes, Joerg and I, to play competitive shortstacking at 100NL. Same rules, whoever is busto first (2 bullets max of £25/time) buys the next round but we can only shove or fold. 

In the first hand I post and it's limped round to the BB who checks. The flop is 345 and I look at my hand to see a beautiful 33 for bottom set. Well, I'm not folding, so I'm defo shipppppppping. I do, to be called in 4 spots by Joerg (64), idiot 1 (69) and idiot two (A6). The pot is over £100. Obviously I'm never winning. 7. BAM. 8. BAM and idiot 1 scoops the entire. I rebuy as does Joerg. Next hand I'm in the BB. Folds to button who limps, SB raises to £4 and I shove £25 with 77. Limper tank calls and raiser says 'I'd have called if you hadn't'. I'm shown K9o by Idiot 1 and the raiser folds his J8o pre. Obviously I can't fade a 9 ball but would have faded Js and 8s. Sigh.

Clifffffs: £50 and a round of drinks down.

More slots...

Made another £20 at slots before calling it an night.

At some point in between...

Had dinner in the casino with all of our Dutch Team (who crussssh at the Stargate slots we have) and a few others. Decent food, great banter.

However....

All this partying has made me iller. I've got a pretty shitty chest right now but I'm fighting through it as I'm going out to dinner with all the CS Team Leads tomorrow night which should be pretty fun. Headed into Spain for the first time....must remember passport and Euro!


That's all for now folks, take it easy!


--huzz

Christmas Party Re-Cap

It's Paaaaaarty Time

Well, what can I say...last night was absolutely epic. I'm tagged in some photos on facebook and I'd recommend flipping through them to see the carnage that developed over the night.

It starts when one of my flatmates and I meet a couple of friends at home, get picked up and arrive at the Caleta Hotel, a hotel I know well from my interview out here. We're greeted in reception with Champagne and mingle eating fingerfood for a while before we're seated. They run out of Champagne at one point, so it's straight onto the rum and cokes for me.

I'm dressed in a suit without a tie, as are most of the blokes, and the women are mostly wearing cocktail dresses or so. There's an air of sophistication around the whole affair and rapidly (post wine with dinner) the sophistication turns to pure hedonism and debauchery. 

Pre party, all the talk had been about the seating plan that had been made for us and everyone was trying to work out what the best tables might look like. As it happens, I end up drawing a pretty sweet table with Nicola (our senior HR person and really nice/friendly/find better adjective), her husband, Cristi (Romanian CSR and cracking lad), Johannes (Pads' future boss who is awesomely degen) and Anett (Finance something or other, I don't really understand, but also class banter) and Phillipe (QA Team Lad and one of the coolest guys I've ever met tbh) and his missus amongst others.

I get through a couple of glasses of wine at the table whilst waiting for dinner to be served and am chatting with away and generally having a good. time. By the time dinner is served everything is in full swing (even the obligatory speech from the CEO has been made!) and I'm having whales of times.

But then....

As I'm tucking into the food, which, to be honest, was average for me (great for those that didn't order Turkey tbh) my face explodes and my tooth begins a war of attrition. It is desperate to ruin this party for me and I'm in hellish amounts of pain. Not to be beaten, I calmly move to reception and ask them to call me a cab. 15 minutes later I'm back at my apartment and having asked the driver to wait, return before dessert with Ibuprofen and Neurofen in tow. I throw a couple of those down my throat washed down with another glass of wine.

Health Notice:

This is not super recommended. paracetamol and alcohol is generally ok (think what you do when you're hungover...take paracetamol) but ibuprofen and alcohol can be really bad because it can cut your stomach up, thus making it far easier for you to ingest the alcohol.

Back to the plot....

I decide to pass on dessert (which did look good) because there was no way I was going to give my tooth another opportunity to ruin me and about 30minutes later I feel no pain whatsoever in my mouth. I mingle with lots of people, mainly with Daniel (Editorial) and David (Content/Education) and we're having insane fun. By the time dinner is over, the fun really begins. Hard liquor is now the order of the day and I move back to rum and cokes from wine. In ordering two at a time I tell people that I'm using rum as a tranquiliser, because I don't want my tooth to get back in the game. In truth, that's pretty much how it was. And I don't like queuing at the bar. Once Graham (Education), Joerg (B2B, flatmate) and I find a secret bar upstairs I switch back to ordering one at a time because there's no queue ;).

From here on out....

It would be impossible to recount everything that happened. Let's just say that the party was epic and ended at around 2:00am before everyone piled back into taxis and made our way to Ocean Village where a) the casino, b) Savannah's (club) and c) my appartment are. At first we end up in the casino because it's generally considered to be 'too early' to go clubbing so we have a couple more rum and cokes and such at the bar. Melvin (Community Manager for Dutch, insane good dancer, hero) runs sick good at the slots so we keep drinking. We decide, between the two of us, that we'd like to go to Savannah's now, so we finish up drinking and leave for the club. This is at about 4am.

I know this because...

We arrive at Savannah's to see a ridic queue and a packed out (mainly men) club (glass fronted so we can see inside). We wait for about 5-10 minutes but the bouncers are really shit at not letting people cut into the front of the queue so don't move anywhere and we find out that for some reason they'd like to charge £10 for entry, when it's usually £5. Fuck that for a game of soldiers, we decide, and head back to the Casino (about 1 minute away) where we can't get in. They shut the doors at 4am and won't let anyone else in. Completely ridiculous policy, but whatever. We then headed to another bar and had a couple of drinks but there wasn't really much going on so decide to head home. On the way, Melvin almost decides to head to the office to play poker. He had the idea of playing $5k NL HU for a spin up but in the end doesn't. *Phew*

When I get home...

I almost play the MiniFTOPS Stud H/L event because I see it's starting in ten minutes (and Pads even offered a stake!) but decide against it because 'you don't realise how fucked I am Pads, I'd be dead money'. I then fall asleep. Saved Pads some money there ;)

The Aftermath...

I wake at about 12 and head for lunch with Joerg, Hannes (German Community Manager) and David. I have Llantio Campero (basically a Gibraltarian mixed grill breakfast thing) and it hits the spot. Arriving home,  I catch the football (great games today, although fuck Alan Pardew, that was Hughton's team!) on the internets and then sleep for an hour or so before heading out for steak with Hannes, Joerg and Melvin. We then head to the casino and I leave to come chill out after about an hour when they decide to play cash and I really cba.

Right Now...

I'm headed back to the casino (it's almost 3am) because I want to watch the Khan v Maidana fight in better quality than the dubious WLAN in Gibraltar can offer. I'm predicting Khan to win, but it will be really close and Maidana could knock him out for sure. I quite enjoy that I can make a snap decision to go to the casino at 3:00am and be there by 3:02am. I could never do that in Newcastle!


Hope you've enjoyed the recap and the amount of blogging I've done lately. I'm hoping to keep up the rate of blogging, but only if I think I have interesting things to say!


Keep it funky and glglglgl to all those still grinding miniFTOPS,


Peace,


--huzz

In which I feel like there's a pneumatic drill in my mouth...

I've been off work sick today for what feels like the first time in over 4 years. My head is on fire, I can't think straight and my tooth is giving it absolute dixie.

I might need to be off tomorrow, too, which isn't really great as I have a lot of stuff to finish by the end of the week so being two days behind would just be suicide to be honest.

Still, it's the company Christmas party tomorrow (the stuff of legend!) and I definitely want to be ill and miss that. Ssssigh. Hopefully the three different painkillers and antibiotics I'm taking can turn it round before tomorrow as obv it wouldn't be good form to miss work and then go party and unless I'm actually incapable of walking I'm going to party.

In other news, what the hell have Newcastle done in sacking Hughton and replacing him with Alan Partridge Pardew? What's he ever done that Hughton hasn't? Absolute disgrace. Somehow this idiot managed to get a 5.5 year deal. I don't even give him 5.5 days. He's gonna cripple us for compensation when he's sacked in 3 months. There's a huge economic incentive for him simply not to perform. And Mike Ashley is allegedly a business man? He's a fucking moron, that's for sure.

In other news, I'm thinking about doing a Masters next year through distance learning. Could be fun.

That's all for now.

--Huzz

Boooooooooooooom

So yeah.

Remember I said that a friend had been out for an interview?

He got 'the call' today and they offered him a job! Ship it Pads!

Here's to being degens in Gibraltar together! :D

That's all for now.

--Huzz

[ ] Dentists are fun. Or cheap.

RE That Tooth Thing:
 
So re the whole toothache thing: shipped the dentist (super nice guy) £200 today which made me feel sad and I have a cocktail of drugs to be taking so that the inflammation which is stopping him just yanking the problem tooth out fucks royally off.

Apparently after what I'm loosely terming 'the operation' (maybe 'procedure' fits better) I'll be in some discomfort for about 2 days. Good thing the procedure (is it better?) is on the 23rd of December then. And I won't be able to smoke or drink for two days at least there after.

[ ] I wanted to enjoy Christmas, anyway.

That's pretty disappointing to be honest, but I'll have to get on with it. The fact that I'm 1800 miles from my home and family on Christmas and now can't even really enjoy myself is pretty awesome. Just for extra fun, I won't even 'be allowed' (Dentist) to work for 2 days. Both my flatmates are going home for Christmas.

[ ] Not only did I want to enjoy Christmas, I was looking forward to some level of social interaction.

[x] Life tilt now. 

[x] will be making turkey soup as it's prolly the only thing I'll be able to drink/eat.

[ ] Christmas will be Merry.

[ ] Get me started on New Year.

So yeah, that's pretty much it. Oh yeah, it occurs to me that if you google my name you can find this blog through my Twitter (not anymore...) but just in case anyone already found it, I'll probably not talk alot about work anymore. I wouldn't want anybody to misunderstand anything that's said here. Too many injokes and NPS based banter which can defo cause misunderstandings. I hear companies do that these days and even whilst I doubt my firm does (too cool by miles) you can never be too sure.

Hopefully see you all for APAT in Januaryaments.

Peace,

Huzz

In which I have two days off in a row for the first time....

Work:

So once again, it's been a little while since I've blogged and to be honest that's because I'm working really hard at getting new processes and procedures implemented at work such that as the department grows (projected to more than double in the next 12 months) we have scalable processes in place that all have an owner which will make us super agile and able to adapt as quickly and possible whilst minimizing the risk of growth at such a rapid pace.

This weekend has been the first time since I got here that I've had two days off in a row. I've still been answering emails and doing a little work, but I haven't actually been to the office at all this weekend. Even though I really love the work I do, sometimes it's nice not to have to physically go to the office. I'm reminded of a speech given by Jason Fried of 37signals fame where he talks about why the office isn't actually a place where people work. If you work or manage in an office environment then this should really be required viewing. Go on, cancel that next meeting. People will love you for it! ;)

In any event, I feel I'm really making progress at work and making the changes that are required as quickly and as sensitively as possible -- even though I have been accused of 'killing the culture' on more than one occasion because I have some radical ideas about schedule and capacity management (e.g. we should forecast volume before scheduling, hardly revolutionary, I know!) I guess maybe I need to learn to tilt less and focus more on getting people to buy in to the changes I want to make. Just because they're obvious wins from my perspective doesn't mean others 'get it' quite so easily.

Social:

The social life here is, as ever, completely awesome. I'm really having a lot of fun and the maxim 'work hard, play harder' certainly applies here! Whether it's going out for dinner or playing poker through the week (still on a lifetime downswing btw, but nice upswing at slots!) to getting absolutely battered at the weekends, there is always something cool to do and awesome people to do it with.

Speaking of awesome people, at the beginning of the month I moved into my new apartment, right on the marina looking out towards Spain and Africa, a full 5 minutes (if I'm lazy, and I think we'll all agree that I am!) walk to the office which is super nice. I've attached some photos below ;)

I'm sure you'll all agree that this apartment is pretty baller for £500/month!

My flatmates Mike (Lead French Community Manager) and Joerg (Poker Market Analyst) are two of the nicest blokes you could ever hope to meet so I'm really happy!

Other:

•  Yesterday was hell because I had a really bad toothache for about 5 hours.
•  Copious amounts of rum solved the problem. ;)
•  Pads was here for an interview last week. The word on the street is that he crushed it. Let's gogogogo one time and ship me the $2k referral bonus lol.
• I'm really hoping to get to the APAT team game even though I (quite rightly) wasn't selected to play. I defo wanna be on the rail.
• I still haven't been to Spain. I really should change that, particularly now I've started learning Spanish.
• I'm speaking more German than I have in about 4 years, which is really nice for sure. Even though yesterday I had a really bad toothache which I can only assume was the result of not uttering a single English word the whole day!

That's about it, honestly. Comments appreciated, and let me know if you wanna join Scottttty and Dan Mutha Fucking Trett here sometime early next year! :D

Hopefully I'll see many of you at the Bolton G in January. Until then, if I don't get the chance, I'd like to wish you all:

A Very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!

Huzz