In Response to Re: Harry's Harmony....the harmonious road to MK! : No you're not following dear. I'm the TROLL, and the guy who sent that (plus a rather abusive FB message at 3 this morning) is the forum good guy. The message was almost as good as his last threat; ''I've found my 6 fingers, they are at the end of my knuckles''. Posted by hhyftrftdr
Yes, I do know you're a TROLL Jon!
Rarther a troll than bitter tho huh
**maybe blocking said good guy like moi will help you in yr mission
£49m. That's a fair whack of money. Could buy a few mansions for that. Or an English footballer called Sterling.
Did City pay over the odds for him? Yes. Does it matter that City paid over the odds for him? Not a jot.
I know I'm biased, but this transfer represents a significant investment over many many years. I like him; he's far from the finished article, but he's the type of player who gets bums off seats. Watching him running at our defence last season wasn't a pretty sight, he has pace to burn and it must be a nightmare for a fullback to be coming up against him. He's also pretty versatile, capable of playing pretty much anywhere in the final 3rd. He gives us far more options and threat than the guy he is likely to replace, Navas. I'm very excited about seeing him line up for us this and future seasons.
Interesting to note that Liverpool are 'only' getting £36m up front for him, with a further £4m in various add ons, and QPR entitled to 20% of the fee paid (£45m), so that leaves Liverpool with £36m to waste on Southampton players.
Poker is still mostly fun. I seem incapable of winning the 9.30 £11 BH despite regularly cashing and occasionally FT'ing it. A few days ago I was chip leader with 3 left. Came 3rd. Played a stupid hand stupidly. My bad. Earlier that day I'd tipped a horse, Birdman at 12/1, at the first race at York. It was pleasing to see it romp home, not only cos I got a few quid for it, but because I knew plenty of people had followed the tip. Was very pleasing to hear X had won ££ and Y had won ££££ from your advice. I think that allows me a few dodgy tips in the future
MK was great fun as always. Nice to see plenty of friendly faces again, plus a few new ones too. Pleased for Jimi chopping the Friday MTT, how he was still sane after sharing a car with myself, Sam and Trippy for 4 hours is beyond me. Didn't win a bean all weekend but it really didn't matter, its not about that. Even the ridiculously expensive pints didn't dampen the mood all weekend. Was also great to see plenty of people sporting the Team Dagg shirts, which leads me on to....
....the passing of the gentleman. I only had the fortune to meet him once, at Newcastle earlier on this year. I had a pint and a natter with him for an hour or 2 on the Saturday night, talking about football, poker, Sky and various bits and pieces. It was nice to chat with him as we'd previously had a mild fallout over a crass joke I made on a rail. There was no air to be cleared or anything like that, but it was nice for us both to clarify a few things over a beer. I know he really enjoyed that weekend, and I hope he knew he was in all our thoughts right until the end and beyond.
So Vegas is fun. Been back 7 weeks but it feels like it was a lifetime ago. Itching to go again. I have a kinda aim to stay in every major Strip hotel, not sure its feasible but I'll have fun trying. So far I've ticked off 5, it should be 4 (Planet Hollywood, Monte Carlo, Flamingo and the now closed Riviera) but due to the delay in returning this last time, BA put us up in Excalibur for the night. We also got the maximum compensation for the delay
The compensation was well received, as it was far from a profitable week! Played 5/6 MTTs totalling about $1000 and didn't get a sniff of a cash. More than half of that was on an event at PH, as the Colossus was a no go by the time we landed. I did have the pleasure of (briefly) sharing a table with Jake Cody in it. Not every day you have a guy sit down at your table who's in the top 5 biggest winners of live MTTs in England. Couple of the Americans at the table didn't realise it was him, despite the fact he is pretty recognisable and had his Stars patches on too. When Jake left the table (he was coming and going frequently), I whipped my phone out and showed the guys to my right his HM page, they finally believed me
Played a decent amount of cash on the trip. Everyone says cash is soft in Vegas if you play in the right places, and everyone is correct. Sadly over the course of the week I was probably a few hundred down, a couple of sessions in Flamingo went badly and saw me do about $700 there, despite the games being good. Ironically, I had my best session in what was comfortably the toughest game I played. We were staying at Monte Carlo. Woke about half 7 one morning and wanted a game, so wandered down to the poker room. There was only the single game of NLHM on the go, a 3 handed $1/$2 table. I sat down with $250 (max buy in was $300 but for some reason I always sat with 250 initially). It soon became apparent that these guys had been playing all night, and the stacks were deep; one guy had about $1700 in front of him, another had maybe a grand. There were straddles all over the place, huge open raises, so different from the passive players you often find in 1/2 games. Playing 4 handed, there really is no hiding place. Whilst I didn't pick up any premiums, I did flop a set in a family pot and that got me a full double. Won a couple other nice pots, a couple of moves got through, before the game broke, and I cashed out for $620 so a nice profit for a couple hour morning session. I really felt like I'd earned that money though!
Couple of hands (one involving me, the other I was a spectator) really highlight how good the games can be. The first hand was at Monte Carlo, the first morning of the holiday. Myself and Simon were on the wait list, and I got seated first in this 1/2 game. I sat down but didn't post the blind (I'm from Yorkshire, I'll wait thanks). Literally the first hand I witness is a $1400 pot in a $1/$2 game. Set over set? Flush over flush? FH into quads? Nope nope and nope. It was TPTK vs NFD.....3 way and a flop of Q 9 7, and the betting gets heavy. We have a bet ($100), a raise, and a cold all in. The guy who bet 100 on the flop is in agony, and after much deliberation he passes 9 7 for bottom two. Other guy calls all in and we have a 700bb pot with one person holding AQ and the other A8 for the flush draw. 2 bricks later and AQ man has scooped, 9 7 man is gutted for passing the best hand and A8 man is felted. I simply couldn't believe what I'd seen. Myself and Simon looked at each and didn't need to exchange words, our facial expressions said it all. Just seemed like madness, throwing money in the pot like it was confetti. If 9 7 had come along for the ride the pot would've been around 2 grand. This was a good game to be in
The other hand was at Excalibur. $1/$2 again and the game was nice. I overlimp (I know, I know!) 5s3s and we go multiway. A A 4 flop gets checked round. The beautiful 2 on the turn. Guy to my right bets $6. I elect to call over raising; I felt he was either taking a stab and wanted to let him take another stab on the river, or he has the A and he's gonna bet for value on the river and that's when I'll stick it in his eye. So we go HU to the river and its a 10, no flushes or anything on the A A 4 2 T board. I am 99% sure I have the best hand, and I'm liking it when he leads again, for $10 this time. I dwell for a bit, considering how much to raise it. I make it $32 and sit back waiting for him to pay me off. He thinks for maybe 5 seconds and then puts a stack of red $5 chips over the line. I mucked instantly, no count required (it looked about $100 raise). I rarely do it but decided to open fold, and when he saw he almost fell off his chair. ''How can you fold that''? he asked me. ''Ah man, no-one else at the table folds in that spot'' he bemoans. In reality, it was the easiest fold of the holiday. He asked me why I folded, and I said that if you're bluffing in this spot 0% of the time, and value raising worse 0% of the time, it means I'm beat. Funny game, in 10 seconds I went from being absolutely sure I had the best hand to absolutely sure I had the worse hand. He shows A4 for the old flopped FH and I say nh.
If you treat lower stake cash games in Vegas like 10/20nl on Sky, you can't go too far wrong! If someone raises you on the river and you don't have the nuts or very close, let it go
Champions League draw day. Makes me feel like a kid at Christmas. The perfect opportunity to combine 2 of my biggest passions; City and travel.
Currently on 6 1/2 Euro away games. The half is Barcelona from the year before last, travelled but couldn't get a ticket in the City end, so had to make do with a bar just off Las Ramblas.
I love the mad scramble to arrange the travel arrangements when all the fixtures are confirmed. I'm off work today so I'll do a bit of flight research in advance, see what routes are cheap on certain match days for potential opponents, try and stay ahead of the curve. You wouldn't believe how much flight prices can rocket when the draw is announced. I remember when we got Ajax the other season, returns to Amsterdam from Manchester went from 60 quid to over £300 in the blink of an eye. The key to keeping the price down is to think outside the box....
Unless an away day falls on some holiday time, I'm restricted to swapping days off, so that means generally flying out on the day of the game, 1 night there and flying back the next day. Probably the most ridiculous itinerary was a few years ago when we drew Lech Poznan of Poland in the Europa League. The game was a Thursday night. Got a late flight out of Doncaster after work on the Wednesday night, to Katowice, which is 5-6 hours away from Poznan. We had a few hours to kill in the airport bar in Katowice, then took the early morning train through to Poznan, arriving about 11 on the morning of the game. It was an old school train, with compartments coming off the corridor. Managed a couple hours of awful sleep! There was a group of 4 City fans with the same plans so was good sharing a beer with them on the journey. Thankfully the trip home only required a 3 hour train from Poznan to Wroclaw.
Oh, and we got beat 3-1
Other highlights include flying to Ryanair's version of Dusseldorf for Dortmund away....it is closer to the Dutch border than Dusseldorf. Got beat there as well.
In fact, my record of wins abroad is about as good as my tournament record on Sky; losses at Sporting Lisbon, Dortmund, Poznan and Barcelona, draw in Copenhagen and wins at Porto and Bayern Munich. The latter was very good, after being 2 down in the first 10 minutes, to then come fighting back and win it 3-2. The Allianz Arena is an excellent stadium, though very much in the middle of nowhere.
You want a 'softer' draw, but I'm selfish so I also want good away day opportunities. So getting Madrid or PSG makes things tough, but it appeals way more than PSV Eindhoven away.
Guess we'll see what the crack is in a few hours.....but I don't think Kazakhstan is feasible
I'd have assumed that as a single lad that wants his travel to mix football and pleasure, all fingers would be crossed for a visit to Malmo away. Sweden is just different gravy. Even better than KFC gravy. Good luck with the draw and, more importantly, bagging the travel and tickets without needing to bink the super roller to cover the cost. Posted by shakinaces
Nothing is better than KFC gravy!
Malmo would be good, fly to Copenhagen and cross the bridge into Malmo, easy. Then cry when a pint costs 8 quid.
Had a mooch on some websites, the agreeable trips in terms of cheap flights on current match days are Malmo, Sevilla, Juventus, Lyon, Wolfsburg, Gent, PSV Eindhoven, Borussia Monchengladbach (God bless C and P).
Ones that are either too complicated, or too expensive (or both!) are Astana, CSKA Moscow, Zenit, BATE Borisov, Shakhtar Donetsk, Dynamo Kyiv,Maccabi Tel-Aviv. Dinamo Zagreb kinda hangs in the balance, expensive to fly direct but alternative flights might make it feasible.
I think I've just bokked us a group comprising Zenit, Kiev and Tel-Aviv......get those balls heated, UEFA.
We have flights for Sevilla away! Would've been happy to go to any of the away games as they all look cracking trips, but Seville won out.
Flights were 86 quid return, I nearly had them at 77 but they just crept up before my payment went through. Checked a few mins ago and already comfortably over £100. Wonder how much by morning....
Someone at the tables last night foolishly said I should revive this. Initially dismissed the notion, but then realised there was a gap in the market with old man Jackson going into hibernation, so here we are.
In honour of said old man, I'll start with a moan. 9 left in the 9.30 BH last night, get KK in vs JJ and a micro stacks Q3 and lose, marv. Least Q3 didn't also beat me, meaning I got 8th instead of 9th. Every cloud.
Fun and busy, albeit slightly bittersweet, weekend coming up. Seeing the comedian Stewart Francis in York on Friday night. Love his puns and dry sense of humour, if he's half as funny as he is on stuff like Mock The Week then we're in for a treat.
Heading to Manchester on Saturday for the Bournemouth game (gl Mick!), then racing to Leeds straight after to catch the Editors. A band that I really like, but also a band that I'm not overly familiar/fond of their newer stuff. In the unlikely event they play just stuff off their first 2 albums I'm laughing! So many bands from that era around the mid 2000's that I like but think went off the boil in recent albums; Arctic Monkeys, Maximo Park, The Enemy etc etc.
Didn't get a sniff for Sevilla tickets, so for the 2nd time I'm heading abroad ticketless. I think (hope) there will be a couple of spares kicking about, failing that we'll try get in the home end. Failing that, a bar in Seville will suffice. Ryanair have moved our flight out, from 12.30 to 8am. Good, in that it means we get more hours in Spain, bad in that we now have to leave York at 3am instead of 7. With it clashing with UKOPs, I guess its logical to just play loads the night before, hopefully go deep in something so I have to stay up, then just sleep in the car and plane.
Speaking of UKOPs, looking forward to it. Won't get to play it all due to work and whatnot, but reckon I should be good for at least half of it, bankroll permitting of course. I have my eyes on the PLO bounty hunter
Be nice to get a few cashes in it, as I'm heading Vegas again in January. Flying from Gothenburg is the new flying from Dublin!
In Response to Re: Harry's Harmony....the harmonious road to Kazakhstan? : Sadly not for the time being. All good things come to an end and all that. How's that Chelsea bet of yours coming along? Posted by hhyftrftdr
Comments
Did City pay over the odds for him? Yes.
Does it matter that City paid over the odds for him? Not a jot.
I know I'm biased, but this transfer represents a significant investment over many many years. I like him; he's far from the finished article, but he's the type of player who gets bums off seats. Watching him running at our defence last season wasn't a pretty sight, he has pace to burn and it must be a nightmare for a fullback to be coming up against him. He's also pretty versatile, capable of playing pretty much anywhere in the final 3rd. He gives us far more options and threat than the guy he is likely to replace, Navas. I'm very excited about seeing him line up for us this and future seasons.
Interesting to note that Liverpool are 'only' getting £36m up front for him, with a further £4m in various add ons, and QPR entitled to 20% of the fee paid (£45m), so that leaves Liverpool with £36m to waste on Southampton players.
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Poker is still mostly fun. I seem incapable of winning the 9.30 £11 BH despite regularly cashing and occasionally FT'ing it. A few days ago I was chip leader with 3 left. Came 3rd. Played a stupid hand stupidly. My bad. Earlier that day I'd tipped a horse, Birdman at 12/1, at the first race at York. It was pleasing to see it romp home, not only cos I got a few quid for it, but because I knew plenty of people had followed the tip. Was very pleasing to hear X had won ££ and Y had won ££££ from your advice. I think that allows me a few dodgy tips in the future
MK was great fun as always. Nice to see plenty of friendly faces again, plus a few new ones too. Pleased for Jimi chopping the Friday MTT, how he was still sane after sharing a car with myself, Sam and Trippy for 4 hours is beyond me. Didn't win a bean all weekend but it really didn't matter, its not about that. Even the ridiculously expensive pints didn't dampen the mood all weekend. Was also great to see plenty of people sporting the Team Dagg shirts, which leads me on to....
....the passing of the gentleman. I only had the fortune to meet him once, at Newcastle earlier on this year. I had a pint and a natter with him for an hour or 2 on the Saturday night, talking about football, poker, Sky and various bits and pieces. It was nice to chat with him as we'd previously had a mild fallout over a crass joke I made on a rail. There was no air to be cleared or anything like that, but it was nice for us both to clarify a few things over a beer. I know he really enjoyed that weekend, and I hope he knew he was in all our thoughts right until the end and beyond.
RIP mate.
The compensation was well received, as it was far from a profitable week! Played 5/6 MTTs totalling about $1000 and didn't get a sniff of a cash. More than half of that was on an event at PH, as the Colossus was a no go by the time we landed. I did have the pleasure of (briefly) sharing a table with Jake Cody in it. Not every day you have a guy sit down at your table who's in the top 5 biggest winners of live MTTs in England. Couple of the Americans at the table didn't realise it was him, despite the fact he is pretty recognisable and had his Stars patches on too. When Jake left the table (he was coming and going frequently), I whipped my phone out and showed the guys to my right his HM page, they finally believed me
Played a decent amount of cash on the trip. Everyone says cash is soft in Vegas if you play in the right places, and everyone is correct. Sadly over the course of the week I was probably a few hundred down, a couple of sessions in Flamingo went badly and saw me do about $700 there, despite the games being good. Ironically, I had my best session in what was comfortably the toughest game I played. We were staying at Monte Carlo. Woke about half 7 one morning and wanted a game, so wandered down to the poker room. There was only the single game of NLHM on the go, a 3 handed $1/$2 table. I sat down with $250 (max buy in was $300 but for some reason I always sat with 250 initially). It soon became apparent that these guys had been playing all night, and the stacks were deep; one guy had about $1700 in front of him, another had maybe a grand. There were straddles all over the place, huge open raises, so different from the passive players you often find in 1/2 games. Playing 4 handed, there really is no hiding place. Whilst I didn't pick up any premiums, I did flop a set in a family pot and that got me a full double. Won a couple other nice pots, a couple of moves got through, before the game broke, and I cashed out for $620 so a nice profit for a couple hour morning session. I really felt like I'd earned that money though!
Couple of hands (one involving me, the other I was a spectator) really highlight how good the games can be. The first hand was at Monte Carlo, the first morning of the holiday. Myself and Simon were on the wait list, and I got seated first in this 1/2 game. I sat down but didn't post the blind (I'm from Yorkshire, I'll wait thanks). Literally the first hand I witness is a $1400 pot in a $1/$2 game. Set over set? Flush over flush? FH into quads? Nope nope and nope. It was TPTK vs NFD.....3 way and a flop of Q 9 7, and the betting gets heavy. We have a bet ($100), a raise, and a cold all in. The guy who bet 100 on the flop is in agony, and after much deliberation he passes 9 7 for bottom two. Other guy calls all in and we have a 700bb pot with one person holding AQ and the other A8 for the flush draw. 2 bricks later and AQ man has scooped, 9 7 man is gutted for passing the best hand and A8 man is felted. I simply couldn't believe what I'd seen. Myself and Simon looked at each and didn't need to exchange words, our facial expressions said it all. Just seemed like madness, throwing money in the pot like it was confetti. If 9 7 had come along for the ride the pot would've been around 2 grand. This was a good game to be in
The other hand was at Excalibur. $1/$2 again and the game was nice. I overlimp (I know, I know!) 5s3s and we go multiway. A A 4 flop gets checked round. The beautiful 2 on the turn. Guy to my right bets $6. I elect to call over raising; I felt he was either taking a stab and wanted to let him take another stab on the river, or he has the A and he's gonna bet for value on the river and that's when I'll stick it in his eye. So we go HU to the river and its a 10, no flushes or anything on the A A 4 2 T board. I am 99% sure I have the best hand, and I'm liking it when he leads again, for $10 this time. I dwell for a bit, considering how much to raise it. I make it $32 and sit back waiting for him to pay me off. He thinks for maybe 5 seconds and then puts a stack of red $5 chips over the line. I mucked instantly, no count required (it looked about $100 raise). I rarely do it but decided to open fold, and when he saw he almost fell off his chair. ''How can you fold that''? he asked me. ''Ah man, no-one else at the table folds in that spot'' he bemoans. In reality, it was the easiest fold of the holiday. He asked me why I folded, and I said that if you're bluffing in this spot 0% of the time, and value raising worse 0% of the time, it means I'm beat. Funny game, in 10 seconds I went from being absolutely sure I had the best hand to absolutely sure I had the worse hand. He shows A4 for the old flopped FH and I say nh.
If you treat lower stake cash games in Vegas like 10/20nl on Sky, you can't go too far wrong! If someone raises you on the river and you don't have the nuts or very close, let it go
Champions League draw day. Makes me feel like a kid at Christmas. The perfect opportunity to combine 2 of my biggest passions; City and travel.
Currently on 6 1/2 Euro away games. The half is Barcelona from the year before last, travelled but couldn't get a ticket in the City end, so had to make do with a bar just off Las Ramblas.
I love the mad scramble to arrange the travel arrangements when all the fixtures are confirmed. I'm off work today so I'll do a bit of flight research in advance, see what routes are cheap on certain match days for potential opponents, try and stay ahead of the curve. You wouldn't believe how much flight prices can rocket when the draw is announced. I remember when we got Ajax the other season, returns to Amsterdam from Manchester went from 60 quid to over £300 in the blink of an eye. The key to keeping the price down is to think outside the box....
Unless an away day falls on some holiday time, I'm restricted to swapping days off, so that means generally flying out on the day of the game, 1 night there and flying back the next day. Probably the most ridiculous itinerary was a few years ago when we drew Lech Poznan of Poland in the Europa League. The game was a Thursday night. Got a late flight out of Doncaster after work on the Wednesday night, to Katowice, which is 5-6 hours away from Poznan. We had a few hours to kill in the airport bar in Katowice, then took the early morning train through to Poznan, arriving about 11 on the morning of the game. It was an old school train, with compartments coming off the corridor. Managed a couple hours of awful sleep! There was a group of 4 City fans with the same plans so was good sharing a beer with them on the journey. Thankfully the trip home only required a 3 hour train from Poznan to Wroclaw.
Oh, and we got beat 3-1
Other highlights include flying to Ryanair's version of Dusseldorf for Dortmund away....it is closer to the Dutch border than Dusseldorf. Got beat there as well.
In fact, my record of wins abroad is about as good as my tournament record on Sky; losses at Sporting Lisbon, Dortmund, Poznan and Barcelona, draw in Copenhagen and wins at Porto and Bayern Munich. The latter was very good, after being 2 down in the first 10 minutes, to then come fighting back and win it 3-2. The Allianz Arena is an excellent stadium, though very much in the middle of nowhere.
You want a 'softer' draw, but I'm selfish so I also want good away day opportunities. So getting Madrid or PSG makes things tough, but it appeals way more than PSV Eindhoven away.
Guess we'll see what the crack is in a few hours.....but I don't think Kazakhstan is feasible
Sweden is just different gravy.
Even better than KFC gravy.
Good luck with the draw and, more importantly, bagging the travel and tickets without needing to bink the super roller to cover the cost.
Malmo would be good, fly to Copenhagen and cross the bridge into Malmo, easy. Then cry when a pint costs 8 quid.
Had a mooch on some websites, the agreeable trips in terms of cheap flights on current match days are Malmo, Sevilla, Juventus, Lyon, Wolfsburg, Gent, PSV Eindhoven, Borussia Monchengladbach (God bless C and P).
Ones that are either too complicated, or too expensive (or both!) are Astana, CSKA Moscow, Zenit, BATE Borisov, Shakhtar Donetsk, Dynamo Kyiv, Maccabi Tel-Aviv. Dinamo Zagreb kinda hangs in the balance, expensive to fly direct but alternative flights might make it feasible.
I think I've just bokked us a group comprising Zenit, Kiev and Tel-Aviv......get those balls heated, UEFA.
Will take that group, get it all confirmed please UEFA.
Flights were 86 quid return, I nearly had them at 77 but they just crept up before my payment went through. Checked a few mins ago and already comfortably over £100. Wonder how much by morning....
In honour of said old man, I'll start with a moan. 9 left in the 9.30 BH last night, get KK in vs JJ and a micro stacks Q3 and lose, marv. Least Q3 didn't also beat me, meaning I got 8th instead of 9th. Every cloud.
Fun and busy, albeit slightly bittersweet, weekend coming up. Seeing the comedian Stewart Francis in York on Friday night. Love his puns and dry sense of humour, if he's half as funny as he is on stuff like Mock The Week then we're in for a treat.
Heading to Manchester on Saturday for the Bournemouth game (gl Mick!), then racing to Leeds straight after to catch the Editors. A band that I really like, but also a band that I'm not overly familiar/fond of their newer stuff. In the unlikely event they play just stuff off their first 2 albums I'm laughing! So many bands from that era around the mid 2000's that I like but think went off the boil in recent albums; Arctic Monkeys, Maximo Park, The Enemy etc etc.
Didn't get a sniff for Sevilla tickets, so for the 2nd time I'm heading abroad ticketless. I think (hope) there will be a couple of spares kicking about, failing that we'll try get in the home end. Failing that, a bar in Seville will suffice. Ryanair have moved our flight out, from 12.30 to 8am. Good, in that it means we get more hours in Spain, bad in that we now have to leave York at 3am instead of 7. With it clashing with UKOPs, I guess its logical to just play loads the night before, hopefully go deep in something so I have to stay up, then just sleep in the car and plane.
Speaking of UKOPs, looking forward to it. Won't get to play it all due to work and whatnot, but reckon I should be good for at least half of it, bankroll permitting of course. I have my eyes on the PLO bounty hunter
Be nice to get a few cashes in it, as I'm heading Vegas again in January. Flying from Gothenburg is the new flying from Dublin!
How's that Chelsea bet of yours coming along?