I'm on a heater, Blair's in hell!!!!

I know this is my blog, but it is in danger of turning into my little brothers! The less attractive, less intelligent and quieter Chalmers. Although recently, he is setting the competitive poker benchmark pretty high!

So lets get it out the way, well done! After making 3 successive final tables out of fields ranging from 700 - 1800 runners on poker stars, he cashed for around $6k last week. Good game etc!

On Monday night my brother Blair was asking me to go through to the £30 + 1 add on OR rebuy game at the Circus Casino in Edinburgh, a good game that has been getting 80+ runners. I wasn't that up for it as I was tired, but decided to give the online wizard a shot at a decent game out of town.

Good decision :D! There were 90 players in the tournament, giving a prize pool of over £4k. Out of the 90 players, me and Blair managed to get down to the last 3 :D

I went out 3rd for £690, Blair and the guy heads up did an even deal after a bit of heads up and took £1600 each!!

It is the first time at a final table where I was wanting him to win more than me! Seriously, I've had a few good results live, and wanted him to experience a win or the big chunk of change.

A really good night, and a great result, if Blair keeps this up he will be staking me soon :D

He also came 17th out of 700 last night in the $40k on stars for $500+.

OK ENOUGH ABOUT HIM, THIS IS BARRY'S BLOG :D

I am on a little heater myself, although living in the shadow just now :D (Now i know how stuart feels being friends with me hahahahahaha)

After winning the £550 seat to Dundee game for £20 last friday, I got 4th out of 52 on Sunday game, and that 3rd out of 90 in Circus game. So things are going well.

Plans.................................

Paul Hendersons home game Friday August 7th

Dundee Festival (Playing the £500 game with my ticket, weeeeeeee, and will prob play £200 as well) will see

Then Scottish Championships at the Maybury start of September, unsure what events I will play there yet.

Going to play a few online tourneys to try and match the recent family standard :D

Also fit in some cash games.

All in all a good month.

OH BLAIR, just so you know, officialpokerrankings.com (I've still cashed more in lifetime than you :P)

Good luck at the tables (everyone apart from Blair who obviously does not need it!!)

ONE TIME :P

Just a short and sweet BRAG post :P, I played the £10 rebuy sattelite for the £550 Two Day game to be held in Dundee at the end of August. I was in for ZERO buy ins and just the add on, so the grand sum of £20 :D

Needless to say I managed to get heads up against Kamakazi Ali, and put on a heads up clinic against his aggressive style. Joking aside, Ali's style makes him a crazy heads up player, and probably effective!

The prizes were as follows

1st £550 Seat - Barry Chalmers

2nd £220 Seat - Kamakazi Ali

3rd £220 Seat - John Kay

4th £20 - Stu

What makes it sweeter is I was down to 900 chips with 7 players left at the final, blinds at 600-1200, managed to get a treble up to 2700, and never looked back after a few double ups.

Will be a good game as it's a two day event and is just down the road, so no traveling etc, and I will know most (if not all of the players).

Want to say well done to my brother Blair who is on a sick run online this week, 3 tournaments played, and he has made 3 FINAL TABLES!! Just sick, all of them had over 700 runners, some nearly 2000 runners.

He managed to win one yesterday outright 1st place for $4044, great score and is up like $5500 on the week from around $70 in tourney entries! MUST BE VERY NICE :D

Obviously watching and listening to his big brother is finally starting to pay off!!

Also congratulations to Colin Wu who is now the daddy of two twin baby girls, kids and mum are healthy.

I always said women will never be as good as men at poker, but wouldn't like to play them heads up in a few years :D SICK GENES :D

Good luck at the tables

Barry

Quite Literally Sick!!!

My ankle ligaments are well on the road to recovery, should be able to start some light running soon and get back to my other love (my twice weekly five a side football :D) Because poker 7 days a week is not balance :D

However, the last week or so I have not been feeling great at all, really bad fevers, sore throat etc etc. Good news for anyone seated next to me, it's not swine flu, but going back to the doctors as I am not right, perhaps just the way I have been living, not getting great sleep and not been eating well. Anyway............

Just a short blog as I can't really be bothered as not feeling great.

Ok had a mini cash in a tourney, nothing to brag about :D

Played a couple of games outside of local casino, Alea Glasgow Friday game and Monday night Circus game in Edinburgh. Both great games, with prize pools in the £4k-£6k mark, as opposed to local casinos biggest prize pool these days £1500. (plan on playing a lot more of these games rather than the local £50 game on Thursday nights)

Cash game results have been good, one hand that must get a mention. Last hand of the night, I'm up around £420, I get AA on the button, game is £1-£1, couple of limpers, I make it £15 to go, get 3 callers.

Flop Q-7-2 rainbow, checked to me on the button, I bet £50. Two sensible players fold, one monkey that cannot control tilt, has serious emotional problems and is also rather ugly, then decides to go all in for £87 total, i obviously have to call the £37 and he knows that. He has 62, so bottom pair 6 kicker, 6 on the turn gives him two pair, and he scoops a £200+ pot.

He muttered the famous lines from several of the dopes down there "had to gamble, was stuck etc etc" He got lucky that time, so he played it really well! :D

Few tournaments coming up Paul Hendo's home game 7th August, then Dundee Festival end of August, Scottish Championships Maybury casino in Edinburgh.

Will play some sort of array from all that, plan on luckboxing a few ;)

GOOD LUCK and HOPE I GET BACK TO FULL FITNESS SOON :D x x xx

Upswinging :D

Recent results have been good, I am playing very well and Mrs Variance (gotta be a female to play games the way she does :P) has been kind to me.

In the past few weeks I have had a few mini cashes in tourneys in local casino and online, nothing major, and my cash results have been steady.

Then on Monday night I played the monthly £50 rebuy game with (£1k added to the prizepool) at the local casino. I got down to the last 6 players and we did a deal as it had turned into the dreaded crapshoot, that was good for a £700 boost to the bankroll.

On Thursday I got down to last 4 players and we chopped that for £325 each as well.

I have injured my ankle ligaments again and it really is quite painful, and if i sit down to long, the ankle starts to swell up. It is starting to get a lot better though. The last time I injured the same ankle I went on a massive heater with amazing results and cashed for like over £4k in a two weeks, so lets hope it's an omen :D

Looks like next few months are going to be very busy poker wise, Dundee Gala casino have just announced a sort of mini festival at the end of August.

Schedule is as follows...........

Fri 28th August £200 Freezeout

Sat 29th August £500 Freezeout (2 day event)

Sunday 30th August £100 Freezeout

So straight from the off, I look to play the £200 one which I think will get decent runners. Whether I play the £500 will depend on the amount of people who register, and/or if i satellite in.

This is partly because if it doesn't get the runners, then I can get a better game for £500, either a Coral British Masters or the £500 game at the Scottish poker championships in Edinburgh.

But there are going to be plenty of satellites etc, so I will see what develops.

Then the week after this poker festival in Dundee, the Scottish Poker Championships at the Maybury take place. I cashed there last year, so plan on playing a few of those events this year.

Again, there are £100, £250, £500 (2day) and £1k main event (2 day) also Maybury running plenty of satellites for them, so will try qualify for the big £1k buy in main event.

All in all a busy month, I am starting to prepare for both festivals now, the goal is to build up the bankroll, cash big in at least one of the events, and look to play the £1k buy in WSOP bracelet event in London in September.

Good luck

Barry x x

Lets get this post out the way :D

I played the GUKPT £300 summer series game in Aberdeen, good tournament, good structure. I traveled up with my good friend Colin Wu, and met a few Dundee regulars up there. The tournament went as follows!!

Early stages, found myself down to about 4k before the first break, managed to pick up a couple of pots and rebuild to 8k. All good!

Mid stages, was never really short stacked, but found myself around 15bb at some points, although managed to build up to 10k when the blinds came 200-400 so a decentish stack that i could actually make some plays.

I came back after a break with 10k starting stack and then went on a bit of a rush, picked up some cards (not monster starting hands, but was connecting nicely with flops) Managed to build my stack up to around the 30k mark, double the average, with around 16 players left.

Then this happened...........

Blinds 400-800, 12 players left, I have 26k in chips.

Under the gun raises to 3k, folds around to me in the small blind, I have QQ. The under the gun raiser has around 10k more behind him, so figure the only play is to shove all in, as obviously any re-raise i make he is either shoving or calling, and don't want any K or A scare cards!

So i shove all in for 26k

Now this absolute clown (most of the night when he was big blind was asked by dealer "any raise" he then mucked his cards 9 times out of 10!! The guy satellited in and did not have a clue!!!

He goes all in for 22k, the initial under the gun raiser folds.

Now the way the action has went I am putting this guy on AA or KK, but he was a complete clown and newbie. So could have been Ace rag hahaha To my delight he had Jacks.

Cut a long story short he hits quads against my Queens!!

A 46k pot (average at that time was 22k) would have been 11 players left and I would have coasted to final table.

I was left with 3k which went in few hands later to no joy.

In summation............

I played really well, and never gave up, built up a nice stack, get a guy in drawing to two outs, and he hits both of them :D

It is disgusting, but I took it surprisingly well. I think it's because I got all the money in as a big favourite, and played the hand perfectly. That is all you can do, the rest is up to MR VARIANCE :D (who will need to change his attitude if he wants a xmas card!!)

Until the next time

Barry

I have a sickness...(BUT I DON'T WANT A CURE!!)

Recent weeks have been strange, have been getting to final tables in tournaments for fun, then been outdrawn spectacularly. Twice went with chip lead, and had guys all in drawn to 3 outers, or two outers, and bang, I'm crippled! Anyway, would be more concerned if I was not getting to final tables, so will just roll with the punches ;)

Funny little 7 days, I have been doing very well at live cash, and not really playing online that much.

THAT IS UNTIL......$120 extra appeared in my pokerstars account, it was as a result of a reload bonus, and have accumulated the required FPP's to activate it.

So I played some 0.50-$1, did ok, up a couple of buy ins, then the fun started!

I'm rolling on pokerstars cash, so decide to take a few stabs!!

What happened after that involved me dipping in and out of $1-$2, $2-$ and even some $3-$6

I managed to roll it up to around $1200, I withdrew some, and sent some to friends who needed dollars in stars, and the gave me the cash.

This left me around the $900 mark, played a tourney ($133)

The last $770-$800 ish, COOLERED OUT THE WINDOW.

Here are some hands that are, mmm, interesting to say the least :D

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4368580 I obviously liked this hand, kind of a cooler for the guy on the river, but a nice hand :D

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4369966 Thought about a little comment for this hand, and could only come up with, "FUCKING DISGUSTING" hahahaha

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4370172 And here is the nicest hand ever!! HAHAH, just sick.

Anyway, it was a nice little ride on stars money, and really thought I was going to kick it on.

I had decided that if I got up to around $2k I was gonna take a stab at $5-$10. Always next time.

Upcoming plans, supposed to be playing GUKPT £300 event in Aberdeen, it is a 2 day event starting Friday night at 8pm.

Nothing much else happening or really on the horizon.

Barry

Same Same (but I keep learning!!)

Not much happened since last post, had a few minor cashes in online tourneys on pokerstars and celeb poker (if u haven't already, join this site via the link on my blog, will set you up with 30% rakeback automatically into your account, site is full of fish and great tournaments on it) Anyway, I digress!! :P

Yeah, had a few minor cashes online tourneys, getting deep, and maybe switching gears to fast near the bubble, I have played very aggressive (arguably too aggressive) near the bubble in a few tourneys recently. Resulted in me busting out in a few marginal situations, rather than building the monster stack to go on and win the tourney. (So gonna make a few adjustments!)

Cash game has been good, was involved in a great little session last Sunday night. I just went down to casino to register for the £50 rebuy game (Starts 18:15 Monday 8th June, Gala Casino) There were only 7 seats at cash table, and a fair bit of money on the table for the £1-£1 game. So i sat down with the £60 short stack and ran it up to about £150ish.

Then the fun started.....

Aggressive player limps cut off, smal blind makes it £10 to go, I have 1010 in big blind, now small blind is quiet tight, so i just flat call, and aggressive players (cough) fish (cough) in the cut off also calls, so £30ish in pot.

Flop comes K - 5 -3

Small blind checks, I stop myself betting, and cut off immediately fires £25. Small blind folds, I don't put him on the K, 5-3 (well good luck to him) set, nope. I don't want to talk to much about the rest of my decision making in the hand, as I play with him regularly (he reads this blog :P)! HAHA

I flat call and the turn is a King. I check, he fires £55, I tank and call. River is Q. I have £95 left. I bet £35, he thinks for a bit, then places a stack over the line that puts me all in. I think for a few seconds, and then I call.

He showed 10 high, complete air.

I admire him firing the 3 bullets, and the re-raise on the river was a super strong move and he actually read the situation correctly, but I was happy with the way I played the hand also. Result, I scooped the pot of around £320ish.

This hand just reminded me, recently I have been experiencing a sick run of cards and getting outdrawn etc, but when it comes to the crunch, it's playing the player (especially live) and u only need any two cards to play, AND WIN! The rest is up to you ;)

Will probably play some cash tonight, and have the £50 rebuy game on Monday, capped at 100 players which it will probably get. The game has around £3k added, so I think the prize pool will be well over £10k.

I final tabled the last one and did a deal, I plan on final tabling this one as well.

I will be bringing my A-game ;) x x x