Thunderbolt and Lightning very very frightening indeed!!

No poker played today, hadn't planned on updating for a while but tonight there's been a rather freak occurance in my life and I thought it might make the blog slightly more interesting.

Went to the farmers pub quiz, got back around 11:30ish, Jen went straight to bed and I stayed up for a bit on the comp just reading websites and stuff.

About 45 minutes to an hour later I heard some thunder. I have an enormous fear of lightning, it's my only phobia but it totally freaks me out so I kept the curtains and blinds closed and carried on with what I was doing.

Then there was a massive crack of thunder but the noise wasn't just thunder, I knew it must have hit somewhere very near to me, a few seconds later I noticed a burglar alarm was going off, I kept the blinds shut for a few minutes but it was still going off and the rain seemed to have eased so I figured we wouldn't see any more lightning so I could have a look out the window. (I'm so scared of lightning I had to have the blinds shut cos a flash of it really really freaks me out)

What I saw when I opened everything was a bit weird, I first saw what I thought was the burglar alarm across the road flashing, I then noticed a police car driving past very slowly, normally they drive past with sirens blaring but that's cos of my friends. I closed the blinds and went back to the computer but a few minutes later I noticed a definite smell of burning, quickly looked round the flat and saw everything was fine, opened the blinds and curtains again and I realised the roof of the house diagonally opposite was most definitely on fire! I was gonna ring 999 but I realised there were two police cars there already so it was probably not needed.

I didn't know what to do at this point, I just sat there staring at the orange glow, I thought I'd go outside and see what was going on and if there was anything I could do. As I was getting my warm clothes on I saw the fire brigade pull up. Now just in case anyone doesn't know, I live on a main road, most of the houses are absolutely massive, especially on the side where the house was on fire, and I mean massive, like 8 or 9 bedroomed mansions! I walked over to see what was going on and the whole roof was ablaze, the police were milling about and the fire brigade were getting their pumps and everything set up. I just stood and stared for about 5 minutes.

I was in disbelief, I think it dawned on me here how close it was to my flat, 100 metres away at the most, and in the big scheme of the world 100m is just absolutely nothing. After a while I realised there was no need to stand there, the emergency services were there. I was useless, I was about to go back home and I saw my next door neighbour. I told her what had happened, she'd heard the bang but thought it was a car crash. Then the guy who lived next door to the house on fire came over to us.

He told us that the police had woken them up banging on their door because they had to get out due to the fire in case it spread to their house. He told us that the owners weren't there, they didn't live there as they'd spent the last 18 months doing the place up getting it ready to live in it but it wasn't ready yet. He also said that noone had been able to get hold of them yet. He told me that the police had said that shortly after it happened there were roof slates shooting away from the house making it incredibly dangerous. I told the guy if he needed somewhere to sit and wait he could come back to mine but they had family further down the road where they were going if they needed.

I came back to the flat and I just stared out the window at the orange glow from across the street. I haven't really stopped looking since. The fire started on the roof and it's so windy tonight that the flames just seemed unabating, I can still see some orange now 5 hours on so I guess the fire still isn't extinguished.

I dunno what I'm feeling right now, I just felt so so sorry for the poor people who's home has been destroyed tonight, but also incredibly relieved it wasn't us but then shocked at how close it was to us.

This is the third time in my life that a lightning bolt has struck less than 100m from where I am, no wonder I'm so scared of it.

I do think I was in shock earlier, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing and I guess I felt a bit helpless knowing that there was just nothing I could do in this situation.

The road was closed for a bit, and I also saw the emergency gas maintenance van come down the road but I'm guessing that was just to switch off the gas to the house to prevent any explosions. Three times during the night I've heard a loud crash of glass breaking which I can only imagine to be the windows blowing out on various rooms where the fire has taken hold.

I'm expecting huge traffic jams down my road all day today as the emergency services are still there, there were 6 fire engines at one point, looks like fewer now though. People are gonna be rubber necking all day though, two teenage lads walked past at some point and were laughing about how cool it was. I don't find it cool.

Not really sure what else to say, I'm in a philosophical mood really. Better now than I was a few hours ago, I was just sat watching the fire from my lounge, I even went back out again around 2:30. No idea why, just wanted to do it I guess. I stood again for a few minutes, then I got hit in the face with a tiny burning ember and decided that was the sign to go back in.

All I can say is I really hope that no one I know has to go through the horror of a house fire, I can't even begin to imagine how these people are gonna be feeling today.

Hope everyone has a good day and stays safe.

Love to you all

Jon

Surprised by how many people are reading this blog

So what to do when not playing poker?
Answer, mess around with the blogging site and find some interesting pages.

There is a stats page which shows me how many views my blog is receiving and where they are coming from, so I thought I'd share them with you all.

When I post a new entry this blog is getting around 90 hits on that day! I was quite shocked as I thought no one was reading it. It also tells me where the hits are coming from, which are thus.

Half are being referred from my facebook page which makes sense as I always put it as my status when I update the blog, the rest are finding it from all places.

It also tells me which countries are reading my blog, unsurprisingly around 75% of the views have been from the UK, around 10% have come from the USA, bit weird as I only have a few US friends but I guess cos they can't play poker in the states they like to read about it maybe? The strangest stat is that 5% of the people who view my blog are from Russia or the Ukraine. Now I know nobody from either of these countries so I wonder who these people are, I'd love it if they made themselves known.

If any of the Ukranians wanna give me tickets to Euro 2012 that'd be great!

I'm getting a lot of views from Gibraltar but I know a few people over there who work in the gaming industry so that's not surprising.

Someone found my blog by searching for 'hyper turbo poker blogspot' on google! weird!!

Even when I went two weeks without updating the blog it was still getting about 5 hits a day and I have set it to discount any of my visits.

So what have I done today. played five a side, I hope Wayne Rooney doesn't read my blog cos I'm gonna talk about what my great 5-a-side team did today. (if you don't get this joke, read the FAQs blog from a while ago)

It was the last two matches from our 5 team group stages with top two making the cup semis tonight. We had to win both games to get through. Had a few problems getting players tonight as everyone was busy but we turned up with five, Damion in goal as usual, me and Aaron who play almost every week and then Colin and Mikey. Got off to a good start, I played Mikey through and the keeper saved the one on one but then inexplicably rolled the ball out to Mikey who scored to put us 1-0 up. We then gave up a strange goal, shot from a weird angle it went between Damion's legs and in at the near post for 1-1. We were still on top though, then Aaron played me through I went to hit it first time with my right, missed the ball, slipped, it hit my left leg bounced in front of me as I was falling, I swung my right at it, just connected and it trickled past the keeper and in off the post! I'd like to see you do that Rooney!!!

Then disaster, Colin turned his ankle and couldn't put any weight on it. We didn't had a sub and there was still about 9 minutes left to play with just 4 men. we defended resolutely with Damion making some good saves, I was knackered cos had to run non stop, we had a few chances, Mikey missed a one on one, I hit a snap shot right into the keepers face and a couple of other efforts. Then with 2 minutes to go they had a shot, it bounced back off Damion to their player who managed to knock it into a pretty open net. This really knocked us as we knew we had to win really, couldn't push forwards cos we were shagged out and ended up conceding again with about 30 seconds left after a weird deflection off the wall gave them an easy chance.

So we lost that one, Colin couldn't play the second game cos of his injury, we managed to rope in one of the lads from the team that just beat us to play. I found it hard cos had worked so hard in the previous game. We went 2-0 down but then Aaron scored a decent goal with his left to make it 2-1 but was soon 3-1. I scored another with about 2 minutes left to make it 3-2 but we just didn't have it in us to score again. Had Colin not got injured I'm pretty confident we'd have won both of those games but sometimes it's just not meant to be.

Went the quiz afterwards, had to sit through the Fulham Liverpool game first which meant a shortened quiz and we couldn't even hear the questions cos there were so many people in the pub. We did crap but at least Fulham won so the bet I put up on facebook won, had £27 at 3/1.

Had fun though, Aaron did lots of magic tricks to keep Naomi happy (she's not a child, she just enjoys it) Talked a bit about the 80's night. Don't need to get dressed up which is kind of a shame, but we'll all just get very very drunkled for it!!

So now I'm watching the american football, my fantasy team has made the play offs tonight, hooray! Wow, life gets kind of boring without poker, I think I'll get stuck into football manager tomorrow!

Seeing as I won't be playing for the rest of the year if any of my friends (Who live locally) want a little coaching session I'm more than happy to help. Hopefully can help your game slightly. For those who live further away I can help you too but would need to chat over MSN or FB whilst watching your game and you can tell me your hands and I can give advice. You'll need to be a quick typist for that but believe it or not that's how I got taught how to play well.

I put that bit in bold so people could see it clearly.

I'm also free for lunch in the day times, or drinks in the evenings so if anyone is bored or going out then let me know and I'll probably come along. Or if anyone is going concourse gym or for a run, let me know and I'll struggle along with you.

Nothing much to add right now hope everyone is happy :)

Jon

Important decision .....

Firstly a quick thank you to all the messages of support I've had over the past few days. It's fantastic to know I have so many friends and family out there who care so much about me. Hopefully from now on my posts will be much cheerier and more relevant.

Over the past few days I've thought a lot about poker and the rest of the year and I've decided that I'm gonna stop til January.

The reasons are many,

1. I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna get that $3k bonus now and don't wanna leave myself close to it cos would end up overdoing it trying to hit it and probably lose more than what the bonus is worth.

2. I want to enjoy December and christmas, so I've withdrawn a large chunk from the poker account which I can use to buy more presents for people and have some good nights out between now and New Year. I'll be able to redeposit for my Supernova elite quest in the new year.

3. My neck is still sore, it's probably wiser to rest it for a few weeks rather than try and push through and cause some serious damage.

4. I know how much I'll be playing come January so it's nice to have a little break before really pushing myself.

5. I don't really feel like playing poker right now which means I'm not gonna be playing my best. Would be throwing money away.

6. I'm not convinced my head is sorted yet, and I found out earlier in the year that I cannot play my best when not 100% ready.

7. I've worked my arse off this year, and dammit, I deserve a rest!!

So there you have it, I'll still update the blog but it's gonna be more about what's going on in my life and maybe some of my in depth thoughts. I'd really love this blog to get more popular so in the new year I'll run some competitions and the prizes will be better than curly wurlys!!! I got a call of the VIP guy at poker stars and he said I could get recommended as a member of their online pro team if I play enough next year and also build a bigger online profile, also means I have to stop abusing people who outdraw me!

So these are my final poker stats for the year......

VPPs earned - 331,431
VPP bonuses earned - $6,600

FPPs earned - approximately 1,000,000 (Hard to know exact figure of what I earned before hitting supernova, I've worked it out based on being gold star the whole time when I was platinum for most of it so might be slightly more.
FPP bonuses earned $16,000

SNG profit - $24,678
MTT profit - $17,743

Overall 2011 profit - $65,021

Add to this $8,000 which was lost on my account by 2 friends which is being repaid in 2012 and we have an overall profit for the year of $73,021

I am absolutely over the moon with this, January I was still working full time and only playing very low stakes, February I didn't play above $30 games, June-August I pretty much didn't play and when I did play I broke even cos of Mum and December I've not played so really I've made this much over just 6 months of play.

It's around £45,000 and because the government doesn't make you pay tax on gambling winnings it works out as the equivalent of about a £75,000 a year job and only really working 6 months of the year.

Gonna include some poker and life highlights as well, and maybe some poker lowlights too.

Poker highlights.

1. Chopping that Saturday eliminator for $8,500. That game lasted 11 hours and I feel I played my best poker throughout the entire tournament, if I played that well every time I played I'd be a millionaire by now!

2. Reaching supernova. I really never thought I'd ever play that much in a year, and never understood how anyone did it but great to see I now have the discipline to play at top levels.

3. Being top of the leaderboards in fifty 50 games from March til June. I've ended up 6th overall but that's because I haven't played very much since June but it was great to see I was the number 1 ranked player across every poker site in the world at the type of games I was playing.

4. Winning a $109 poker tournament for $3600. It was a great win and a testament to how I can play a short stack.

5. Winning my first tournament with a field of 1000 players. I've always won tournaments since I first started playing but they were normally 60-150 runner tournaments. When I finally one a game with over 1000 people in it I realised I really had the ability to make it at this game. I've since won 3 other tournaments with fields of 1000 or more players.

6.Cashing 18 $100 fifty 50 games in a row. In these games 5 of the 10 players will at worst get their money back, so it's fifty 50 as to whether you'll cash or not (if you take the skill element out) One night in May I made the top five in 18 of these games in a row winning about $2,000 in the process.

7. Finally retaining a multi. In September I finally won the same tournament two days in a row, the $22 big antes tournament that starts at 3:45am. It was only about 70 runners each day but it was the first time I'd ever successfully defended a tournament crown.

8. Cashing all 8 fifty 50 games in one set. Earlier in the year I would play a set of 8 fifty 50 games and then after that do another one. It took me til July to finally make the last 5 in all 8 of the games. and then I did it again 2 sets later! (Shame they were all $30s)

9. Realising I could play 40 games at a time and continuously. Since discovering table ninja and knowing I can do this it opens up so many possibilities for next year and almost limitless earning potential.

10. Discovering fifty 50 games. I started my account with just $90 in January before I found these games. Quite incredible what I've acheived since then.

Poker Lowlights

1. The worst moment of the year for me was when I was down to the last 100 from 3000+ in the supernova $1,000,000 tournament, $100,000 for the winner and I was all in with TT v AJ the board came T 5 4 3 2. Win there and I was average stack with 100 left and a real shot at a massive prize! I won $500 but should have been so much more.

2. Losing $3,000 in one night. It was back in May and was just horrendous, every hand I played
I lost no matter what I had, felt like crying by the end of it.

3. A friend accessing my account and losing $4,000. It was whilst I was on holiday, I won't dwell on it too much as it's all been sorted now but at the time I felt so upset.

4. The 70 billionth hand scandal. I mentioned it on the blog when it happened. Stayed up all night playing cash games (which I'm crap at) only to find two cheating germans won the 70 billionth hand through skullduggery

5. Phase89 winning his prop bet. I have nothing against him personally, just hated how lucky he kept getting and he really didn't deserve to win the bet but the effort he had to put in to win it was pretty incredible.

Can't think of many other lowlights off hand so that's pretty good for me!

I'll do life highlights another day.

Gonna go through a few records on the year.....

Biggest profit in a single day just from SNGs - $1,936 29th April
Biggest losses in a single day just from SNGs - $2,397 9th May
Biggest profit in a single month just from SNGs - $11,055 April.
Biggest losses in a single month just from SNGs - $5,415 October (This is my only actual losing month in SNGs all year!)

Biggest profit in a single day just from MTTs - $7,889 30th October

Can't really get the figures for other stuff on MTTs sadly.

Best day of the week to play on - Sunday (overall profit $14,500)
Worst day of the week to play on - Tuesday (overall profit -$1,500)
Best hour of the day to play SNGs - 2-3am (overall profit $5,200)
Worst hour of the day to play SNGs - 12 noon-1pm (overall profit -$4,000)

Most games played in 1 day - 326.

Rake for 2011 (Money paid to the poker site) $59,661. No wonder they think I'm a VIP!

Can't think or find any other categories I can put some stats up for but if anyone wants to know anything else just ask me and I'll do my best to find it. I'd love to know exactly how many hours I've played for but sadly I dunno where I can get that info.

So there you have it, my 2011 poker year summed up. Quite interesting to see it all written down, I need to find out how much of that money I lost playing bingo online or betting on sports! probably won't be too bad.

Be interested to see what comments people have on this.

Speak to you all soon :)

Jon x

Can't sleep - lots on my mind

It's 2:25am on Friday night/Saturday morning and I just can't sleep. Got a lot on my mind and thought maybe updating my blog would allow me to vent a bit of steam.

Still can't really play poker cos of this neck pain, I played last night when I got home drunk from the pub but had a losing night, didn't play badly just ran horribly and then tilted a bit with some pretty loose calls but I know not to do it again.

As most of you who read this will know, I lost my mum to cancer about 5 months ago. It's not been an easy time and I pretty much had 3 months off poker because of it as just couldn't focus. I've been ok of late but with the run up to christmas I've had a lot of down days recently, I think it's things like buying presents but knowing I won't be getting her one and knowing how hard christmas day is going to be for my sister and my step-dad.

I edited a big section out here as on reflection it's probably not appropriate to post in a public forum.

I've been pretty worried about this neck injury too, it's stopping me wanting to play and I really need to be hammering it or I'm not gonna get this bonus and I'm not winning at the moment, it's like being off work sick but on no pay. It's bloody boring having nothing to do in the daytime as well.

The recent strikes has been a cause of concern for me. I've been quite open that I'm against the striking and I can say this with a girlfriend who's a health care professional. I don't wanna get into a debate on this on my blog as everyone is entitled to their views, however I did manage to upset a few friends on facebook by vaguely defending Jeremy Clarkson. That was never my intention as I hate upsetting people (unless they've outdrawn me) so I think it's clear I should stay away from such sensitive topics in open forums.

I went out last night with some friends and we had a few drinks, I made the mistake recently of telling two of them how much I made in November at poker. I know they're only joking with their comments but telling bar staff I'm a millionaire (which clearly isn't true) is embarrassing and I dunno how to react to it. I do hope to one day be a millionaire from poker and property but I'm a long way from that right now.

We did get on to an interesting debate which started when I mentioned the $10m game on pokerstars in 2 weeks. Basically this is a poker game costing $215 to enter and the winner is guaranteed at least $2m. We then started talking about what you'd give to your friends if you won such a large amount.

I said that if I were to win that tournament I wouldn't give any friends anything I'd just organise a big party, the problem being that you can't give everyone the same amount as people you've known 20 years aren't gonna be happy with getting the same as people you've only known for a few months and also you have to draw the line somewhere as to who gets money and who doesn't. They seemed to think I should just do something like give £500 to all my friends but I don't think there is any way to give money to people and not upsetting someone in some way.

If I'd won £90m on the euro millions that would be different obviously but nowadays $2m wouldn't even be enough to retire on, I'd be interested in what people have to say about this.

Other things are playing on my mind but to be honest this is nothing new for me, I've always had problems sleeping but when things have upset me it's even harder to get off to sleep, I should probably take some kalms or something, earlier in the year when I wasn't sleeping at all I was prescribed zophiclone but that's just a killer, would send me to sleep and then the next day my brain was just scrambled!

I'm looking forward to the football tomorrow and the NFL on Sunday, if anyone likes a bet then stick something on Newcastle. fantastic value.

Hopefully this will help me get to sleep now, if you hate me please don't put anything derogotory about me on this entry as I'm feeling quite emotional right now and am liable to bite back. If you love me then please show it!

Ok, it's taken me 20 minutes to write this and I'll probably delete it in the morning but we'll see what people think about it. Maybe some things are better left unsaid, I dunno. I'm such a tormented soul, should probably start self harming! (that's a joke and I apologise to anyone I've offended with it)

Oh, I'm not sending christmas cards this year, cos well, I never do but I will send you all a facebook message.

Oh, Railway is doing an 80's night on 17th December, should be fun, we should all go!