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There is another poker forum that I read as well as this one. It used to be wonderful. It's run by a prominent, very well respected chap in poker. There were some great diaries written by people who had started at the bottom and moved up and were now making a living from the game. That I'd played with a few of them made it even more interesting to read as I felt that I kind of knew them, even though I didn't.
The diaries have now mostly disappeared and now I can go onto the main page of the forum and on occasions there has only been 3 or 4 posts in the whole day. There are still 2 diaries on there that I absolutely love reading. One is written by a guy who 4 years ago was lacking a little in confidence and decided to name his new diary "The best in the business"
No doubt people cringed when they saw this but he didn't just talk the talk. He's now rated no1 on pocketfives and his journey has been fascinating to read. His drive in incredible.
The other diary I enjoy is totally different. Poker is occasionally mentioned but the stories and observations are what makes it great reading. It's highly popular and some very sharp people post on there. I'm not the smartest and I need to look up half the words that they use. On this diary the other day it was said that there may be some truth in that forums/blogs are now dying with Facebook and Twitter taking over.
Is this the case?
Sadly, I think that might be the case with the other forum. But here?
I don't think so. There are some poor periods, I think we're just coming through one, when there's trolling, everyone seeming to be angry etc but I think this forum has and will continue to come back strongly.
In my opinion we're very lucky to have this forum. Sky don't need it. I spoke to one of the Sky guys at Newcastle and I can't remember the exact number but it was an incredibly small % of players who use the forum.
I'm certainly guilty on the other forum of reading but not posting. I've read it pretty much every day for a few years and think I've posted about 50 times in total.
I guess I'm probably too open about things and others may not be comfortable writing about anything other than poker. I like to write about non poker stuff and hopefully it's interesting to others. I also do this as I'm hopeless when it comes to writing about poker and just make myself look silly
Not going to bang on about Spts again, well not too much, but the forum is brilliant for making new poker and real friends. Before I started writing on here I was a bit of a poker loner. People knew my face and said hello but that was about it. After meeting up with people at Spts I can now go up to Burnley and watch football with good friends or go to Ireland and meet up with great people and have top weekend. I'm sure there must be an upsurge in forum posts after Spts and I do hope they return.
I'd change the forum a bit as well. I'd definitely get rid of bb@v. Can't see the point at all. So many of the threads on there just end in rows. The idea of breaking up the clinic into sections hasn't worked for me. I think when I last looked at the tournament advice section there hadn't been a post in 10 days. Don't make it a hassle for people, make it easy. Just call it the clinic once more and encourage people to start posts with "Dym hand" or "Nl50 cash hand" etc
More 'well' stuff as well would be good. it would be fascinating to find out how people like Dtm started out and got to where he is now. Noticed the other day that Tikay didn't correct the person who credited him with the idea of starting it up again
Something like a thread "Your poker story" would be great as well. I'm nosy. I'd love to know how others got into the game and so on.
Unlikely to happen I guess but diaries from some of the high stake players on here would be a huge hit. Is there anything that could be done to encourage them? It's great seeing people playing similar stakes to me doing well and completing challenges but having for example Style talking through his thought processes in £2k+ pots would be really interesting.
Finally I think that to encourage people to post more then maybe Sky should pay out larges sums to people when they have completed a certain amount of posts. I don't know, maybe after something like 2237 posts?
Great stuff Paul, will reply properly tomorrow, bit busy right now.
For now.....
You have made 52 Posts on that other Forum. All of them excellent, obv.
I don't recall the Post that credited me with the revival of "In The Well", & I don't recall who is responsible. But I do intend to start more of them. It just seemed a good idea to try & get them going again, so whoever first did that, well done them.
I've got similar views on those Strategy Boards, too, one "Clinic" seems to be enough, as the sub-boards are stagnant.
% of Sky Poker players who use the Forum? Think it's around 3% or somesuch.
BB&V? It blows me away, in so many ways.....
More later, 2 excellent Posts if I may say so.
I read every new post from the previous night,comment on some,ignore some and marvel at others.
Long live the Forum !
There were some really interesting points in your Posts as to how Forums work, & how we can & should help them be better, & where some are getting better or worse.
I always think Forums are "living things", with moods & ups & downs, & need tending, just as you would a garden, a flower bed, or a young lady.
You were right on the money with reference the recent aggro & trolling on here, but, thankfully, it's a little better now.
Stephen Fry - yes, THE Stephen Fry - who has suffered as much as most from trolls & haters, sent a Tweet yesterday which linked to an incredibly fascinating article about trolls & what goes on inside there heads. I may post it somewhere tomorrow.
OK, gotta go.
Maybe it's just been unfortunate with the forums I've frequented, but I've always seen/expected an uplift in trolls and nuisance posts over the summer months... just assumed it was a number of younger posters getting a bit bored during the holiday period and letting out their frustrations before disappearing again when the new term arrives.
That and we're British. Always extra chopsy-ness around when it's hot. We're just not used to it.
Feel a little bit deflated rght now. Just bust the main in 9th. Was 4th in chips at the start of the hand and there were some low stacks. Jumps were decent as well.
The hand
I'm effective stack with around 160k
Blinds 2.5k/5k
Extremely creative player mins to 10k
I have KK on the button and make it 24k and he flats.
Q 6 4 with 2 spades on flop.
He checks, I bet around 26k and he shoves and I snap.
All over on the turn when the 7 comes to give his 5 3 the straight.
£160 for 9th
....
I had me prep for the crowns today. Temporary ones fitted. Go back in a couple of weeks for the actual crowns and another filling. Decided to pay for the lot today so that it's done. Had already paid out £370 so just the small matter of £1139 this afternoonAbout 15 mins ago I was really eyeing up 1st to pay for it or 2nd to nearly get me there. ☺
......
Thanks everyone for the replies to my post the other day.
Trolling seems to be the main thing that people have taken from it.
It really wasn't meant to be about that in particular.
What I was trying to say is that I think we can all be guilty of taking stuff for granted sometimes.O nly realising how good we've had it when it's gone. I think we're very fortunate to have such a great forum and I just want to see it getting better and better.
In my opinion there are a number of things that could be improved and anything that people can come up with to help drive the forum forward would I'm sure be appreciated by Sky.
....
I'm such a dunce with computers. Once I change the font size I can never get it back to the one I want.
Just how long did it take for you to create your work of art.
Had me chuckling away for a while
I think I'm similar to yourself in that I'm not really bothered if someone ends up +£24 for the day, or got coolered right near the end of a session and ended up -£47. You've seen one hand in poker, you've seen them all. There are of course exceptions to that, but just from a general point of view. A diary/thread is much better IMO if balanced with other things. Sometimes, less poker = more interest.
Though any diary that revolves around a smoking alien statue obviously has my blessing
RIP Harry Dave and Bob too. Sob.
When I was about 14 I used to look forward to the summer holidays. After a couple of weeks I always began to get bored. There's only so much of watching Tavare and Curtis opening for England and Why Don't You? that I could tolerate before I started looking for new things to do.
My mate Tom found something new to do, Golf.
We joined Mickleover Golf Club and every morning at 9.00 we'd set off, meet at Franco's and walk to the club and stay there until dark. Incidentally, Franco's was the 'Go to' place for 15/16 year olds in Mickleover who looked 12 and were in urgent need of 8 cans of Skol
That reminds me. The first time I got drunk was about a year later. I played 2nd team cricket for Derby Congs. One of our lads got a century and so to celebrate we got him a jug as was customary. They decided that I could have a drink and we started to play drinking games. Unbeknown to me they were letting me win every time. I loved it! I was getting loads of free drink. I was fine whilst in the pub but when I stepped outside, things started to go wrong. I couldn't see straight and my legs weren't working very well. The lads kindly dropped me off in the village about 10 minutes walk away from home. I remember that there seemed to be hundreds of joggers that night. I was totally convinced that one of them would try and steal by cricket bat.
I held on tight and staggered home.
My Dad and sister were sitting on the wall and I muttered hello. Told my Mum I was fine when I walked through the door and ran up to my bedroom. I threw up and passed out. Woke up about 12 hours later and felt evil. My Mum didn't buy my story I hadn't been drinking that it was all down to the carrot cake that I'd had at tea. Not had a drink since.
Anyway, back to the golf. I had a lesson with the assistant pro Nick 'not the actor' Berry along with 4 others. Basically I was taught how to grip the club. That summer I became an addict. We'd play 18 in the morning and 18+ after dinner. Dinner was sausage, beans and chips. Joan, the waitress, was so old it was rumoured that she first took up employment at the Golf Club when it was founded in 1923. Joan liked us and so we always got extra sausages.
I got better at the game, I had decent hand eye co-ordination and so got away with a poor swing. A few years later and I was down to 10. I played in one of the clubs majors and went round 2 under par for a 66 net 56. Won it by 9 shots. I remember over hearing someone say that "he'll never do that again". They were right but I did shoot level par in the next competition I played. Suddenly I was down to 5. So I was pretty good but not great. I realised that to get better my swing needed to be technically better.
I started having lessons and very quickly my handicap did change... for the worse!
I'd always just gripped the club and hit it as hard as I could. Now I was having to think about things. So many things that I was forgetting to actually hit the ball. I've never got back to being as good as I was back then and I'm now off 9. My swing looks a lot prettier but very rarely do I just hit the ball.
My inconsistency knows no bounds. On Thursday, I played. On the front 9 I was 8 over and once again ready to quit the game for good. I took a practice swing on the 10th tee and it just felt right. I stopped thinking and just hit the ball. I came back in 2 under gross. Should have been 3 under but I missed a tiny put on the last to bogey it.
Ok, Guess I should finally get around to my point. A while ago Melty suggested that I should ditch the Dyms and get some coaching and play a lot of mtts.
His comment scared the life out of me. It made perfect sense. I'm better than average at poker and make a few quid, but to get better, coaching would make a lot of sense. The best players get coaching. MattBates mentioned the other day how the coaching he's received has made him better. The difference though is that Matt is already very good. No doubt for him it was just a bit of fine tuning. I, on the other hand have so many leaks in my game. Similar to my golf swing I would probably need totally rebuilding to improve. The idea of coaching is frightening for me because although it makes sense I'm concerned that i'll suddenly start 2nd guessing myself and thinking about what I should be doing rather than what I want to do.
I was quite natural at golf and although my swing didn't look good, I was probably doing a lot of things right. There's a decent chance that I'm doing the same now at poker without really realising it.
So, the questions I'd love some opinions on are
Should I just carry on as I am? Knowing full well that I'm a million miles behind the top players on the site
Should I ignore what happened when I took golf lessons and sort out some coaching?
Should I just continue with my present way of doing things and put most of my volume into Dyms and play the odd mtt? I know, as I have a good sample size, that I will win at Dyms over the long term. I'll never win big sums but it can be a nice little no pressure side income.
Wow! Well batted if you got all the way down to the questions.
Thoughts?
Now that brings back memories. Who remembers Party Sevens?
Paul "NTPP" Jackson you definately need coaching. PM me for details.
When peeps post Q's on here I reckon they pretty much already know what they are gonna do but seek some confirmation it's the correct way to proceed.
You just need to ask yourself a few questions and give yourself honest answers. For me the main one for you is are you really willing to grind MTT's night after night to override the massive variance that comes with them?
You are already a winning player on Sky MTT's and have a decent little Sharkscope graph so who says you REALLY need coaching anyway. The fact is you do not put in the volume to make the big bucks that some of the good players on here do. Do you really want to commit to playing 4-6 hours solid most evenings? There'll be none of the 'won 3 DYM's, got a text, de-regged the rest, went to pub' malarkey. All grind and no playtime might just make Jac a very dull boy. You seem to have a pretty good balance across your interests, hobbies and family time at the mo, do you want to mess with that? I suppose if you think you can make some life changing amounts then it's worth it....decisions decisons...
Must be great to be a decent golfer, 9 is still a steady old mark even if you can't match the giddy heights of -2 followed by even par in club comps anymore. I'm the world's worst 13 handicapper. I can effortlessly repeat duck hooks off the tee, balloon fairway woods way right, pull mid irons left of the green, chip to 3 feet then lip out putts. Thing is though I enjoy it, thats the main thing with leisure activities, getting some fun out of it. You just need to decide whether poker will still be fun if you go down your new route.
Good luck, run well.....FORE!!!
ps. Ryder Cup will be all over by half 3 tomorrow, us Europeans really are quite good at golf now aren't we?