Recently Written
Categories
- Funny
- IT Tipz & Trix
- Misc
- News
- pok3rz
- Rants
- Reviews
- Sighs
- Uncategorized
Archives
Blogroll
- Inferno - International Man Of Mystery. And a very good friend.
- Merlijn - One of my best friends in Holland
Admin
- Log in
- Wordpress
- XHTML

From my phone!

Posted by bb on Thursday 5th of February 2009 at 8:58 pm.
Filed Under News

Just a quick post to let you know I clawed my way back with 2 top 5 finishes and a 3rd and am back on track to keep that bankroll growing.

Also to let you know that I can now blog from my phone so you can expect more regular updates. Lucky you 😛

Posted by Wordmobi

(No Ratings Yet)

About this Post
Permalink | Trackback | | Print This Article | Leave a Comment

Beers + Pok3rz != Profit

Posted by bb on Thursday 5th of February 2009 at 2:51 pm.
Filed Under Uncategorized

Pride comes before a fall and beer comes before a loss. Fuelled by a new sense of self belief, and several beers and a half a bottle of red wine, I jumped online and managed to lose 80% of my bankroll in three tourneys!!

I must learn about bankroll management at some time.

Hopefully I’ll be able to pull some of the loss back today – here goes … 😀

(No Ratings Yet)

About this Post
Permalink | Trackback | | Print This Article | Leave a Comment

This Poker Business is E-Z

Posted by bb on Tuesday 3rd of February 2009 at 6:18 pm.
Filed Under News

bankroll1

$0 invested
$3.38 returned

That’s …. an INFINITE ROI!!! I pwnz0r t3h W0rld!

Still, based on winning $2 a day, I’ll come up short of $1000 by next year. On a % win however, I’ll be there very quickly. Any hints and tips from me to you?

BANKROLL MANAGEMENT.

’nuff said

And a yaboo sux0rz to the chap who knocked me out in 2nd position in my last SnG … damn flush draws 😛 (Actually – ncm 😉 )

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

About this Post
Permalink | Trackback | | Print This Article | Leave a Comment

T3h Pok3rz

Posted by bb on Monday 2nd of February 2009 at 11:34 am.
Filed Under News

I am officially a professional poker player as of this weekend!

To quote The Free Online Dictionary on the subject :

pro·fes·sion·al adj.
1. a. Of, relating to, engaged in, or suitable for a profession: lawyers, doctors, and other professional people. b. Conforming to the standards of a profession: professional behavior. 2. Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer. 3. Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football. 4. Having or showing great skill; expert: a professional repair job.

Whilst I definately fall outside of the scope of 1,2 and 4 – I’m actually getting paid to play. Well I’m winning so I’m calling that my ‘wage’

So – how much is a professional like myself earing? I entered two freerolls recently (meaning you don’t have to pay to play) and in the first one I finished 31st out of 4438 players and won … wait for it … $0.90!! Obviously most of it I am having sent offshore for tax reasons but I’m going to keep some to try and grind into a little more.

The second freeroll I donked out just after making the money as it was late O’Clock, the Super Bowl was on and I was ab-so-lute-ly knackered so I won $0.25 for finishing in 550th position!

So now I am a wealthy, independant poker player with over $1 to my name. Who knows how much I can parlay this into?

My aim? $1000 by this time next year. I’ll keep you posted how I get on!

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

About this Post
Permalink | Trackback | | Print This Article | Leave a Comment

Why I hate CSI:New York

Posted by bb on Friday 16th of January 2009 at 4:58 pm.
Filed Under Rants

Being UK based, we are a little behind our US cousins when it comes to new series of US based shows. Channel 5 has just started showing season 5 of CSI:New York (the one with Gary Sinise in).

As a self confessed geek, I like a certain degree of believability in my crime drama. I can overlook quite a lot, upto and including the ridiculous noises that the computers make whilst flashing up the mugshot of everyone in the AFIS system. After all, it must be much quicker to pull the image of the offender, their finger prints, the comparison fingerprints and display it all rather than just having a little progress bar.

Like This?

Fortunately the AFIS system is obviously blessed with unlimited bandwidth and disk speed 😉 An annoyance, but still overlook-able.

What is less able to be forgiven is when they start messing around with ‘image enhancement’. I realise I am not alone on the intertubes when I moan about how cunswuppily ridiculous the image enhancement is, but it may surprise you to know that it is not the fact that they can produce high resolution images from any input (upto and including reading the text on a badge that was reflected off the sunglasses of the person using an ATM machine :o) but when they flat out contradict each other!

The particular scene that made me remember exactly why I had given up on CSI:New York was not the 3D holographic body that they now use in the morgue (sigh) but when the ‘perp’ was escaping in a stolen car. Apparently at some point he had to pass a toll bridge at which point he dropped his money and opened the car door to retrieve it. When he bent down to collect the money his face was captured on the security camera. Apparently they were unable to enhance the image enough to be able to ‘see’ his face, but there was sufficient detail in the enhanced image to perform a biometric comparison to establish it was the perp they were after.

So far, so surprisingly real.

Until they zoom in and read the VIN number off the door of the car …

So … Let me get this straight … you can zoom in and read something like this :

… but not far enough to actually identify the perp.

Feck off ….

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

About this Post
Permalink | Trackback | | Print This Article | Leave a Comment

Pokerroom.com support – Part II

Posted by bb on Thursday 4th of December 2008 at 9:32 pm.
Filed Under Rants

As mentioned here, I emailed pokerroom.com to get their response on the connection issues and asked for their response.

In pokerroom’s defense, they came through pretty quickly. Here is what they had to say … and my comments on their response. I told them that I would publish their response unedited, so I will put my comments inline and not take out any stuff that I am not commenting on in the spirit of honesty. I have however removed personally identifiable information.

Thank you for your recent e-mail about your connection issues.

I am sorry to hear that you have experienced connection problems while playing our games.

As communicated to you previously, the problems you are experiencing are on the users end. Here is some information that can help you to improve your internet connection and playing our games plus solving some common problems:

Why does it only happen in the evenings then? If it was at my end, I would imagine it would be constant. Unless it was my ISP. At which point you are basically saying ‘pokerroom is fine, just don’t expect to play on our network if you are with BT. The UK’s largest ISP by subscriber number. Way to go – alienate the largest single percentage of your UK target market in one fell swoop.

DELETE TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES (CACHE):
In an Internet Explorer window then click on the “Tools” button at the top of the browser. From there scroll down the list and click on the last option “Internet Options”

From the new box which appears then under the middle section under the “Temporary Internet Files” then click on the box marked “Delete Files” and then finally click on “Apply” and “OK” at the bottom of the box.

ummmm … I’m not using IE to play – I’m using the standalone software.

BROWSER UPDATE:
If you have Netscape (or an old version of Internet Explorer) please install the latest version of Internet Explorer.

After you have installed IE, I suggest that you update your new browser with the latest improvements and security patches.

After you have installed IE and installed patches, you must restart your computer.

*cough* See above

JAVA UPDATE:
The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) can be found here:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html

Click on the link ‘Download J2SE JRE’ which is the most recent, stable version of Java. It will start to download this version of Java for you if you do not already have one. It’s for Windows XP, Me, NT, 2000, 98, and 95.

Not a bad idea. Let me check and see how upto date I am. V6.3 – latest version 6.11. I’ll update and see how that works.

Didn't work out so well really

APPLICATIONS RUNNING:

If you recently have installed new applications or have a lot of applications running in the background when playing that can be a problem. Try to experiment and close down programs that you don’t need.

I hope this helps with the general maintenance of your computer and allows you to play on our site without any hassle. Should the problem persist, please contact your Internet Service Provider.

Oh why do you guys insist on copy pasting and not listening to what your customer is saying. IT WORKS FINE IN THE DAYTIME, NOT IN THE EVENING. I’m not firing up another 20+ apps in the evening, if anything I’m shutting them down to try and maintain a connection to your site. Nice try though :/

As far as the information Trevor previously advised you about, I can confirm that this is accurate.

Here we go. It is actually a loading issue at your end isn’t it? It’s not my ISP, it’s not my PC running too many apps, it’s not my version of Internet Explorer. You guys can’t support the number of free games you are running. And if I am to give you real money, I NEED to know if you are doing the same on the cash games or not. Since you can’t/won’t answer this (see below) then I can only assume but yes. There is no way I will commit real money to a site that cannot guarantee it won’t fall over if a few extra users come online.

To query about the cash games, please send us some more information about what you would like to know about these games.

Quite simply, as I mentioned, whether they were hosted on the same servers or whether the same loading issue would occur as with the free games.

Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Regards,

10/10 for a speedy response from pokerroom. A fair question maybe is a quick, near useless, response better than a slighlty slower, considered response. Are we happy to receive boilerplate replies as opposed to if someone took the time to look at our problem, think about it and respond carefully?

More to the point – would you send these people your money?

Me … I’m yet to be convinced.

(No Ratings Yet)

About this Post
Permalink | Trackback | | Print This Article | Leave a Comment

Pokerroom.com support (or lack thereof)

Posted by bb on Thursday 4th of December 2008 at 6:45 pm.
Filed Under Rants

I play online poker at pokerroom.com when I have some spare time. Recently in the evenings I have a really lousy connection. Constant timeouts, disconnects etc.

So I tried a quick chat with pokerroom support. I sent them my logs indicating that there was no issue with lobby chat, just in the games etc and I got this gem in reply

You will be pleased to know that the relevant department has got back to us regarding the matter. We have reviewed the details you have provided, as well as the session history and can confirm that you indeed experienced intermittent connectivity issues during the $100,000 Freeroll Day 1C multi tournament on the 12th November.

No shit Sherlock! Thanks for confirming that I wasn’t in some wierd hallucinogenic trance thinking I was timing out left right and frickin’ center.

The same thing has been happening now for some time so I tried again with online support – when I got to the bottom of the problem

These are exact quotes from Trevor – the online support chap I was talking to :

Trevor:
Its due to the amount of traffic on the site.

Trevor:
It is due to the amount of traffic on the site and unfortunately it is one of those problems which occurs worldwide.

You know what Trevor (and pokerroom)? It’s not. It’s a problem when you don’t put money into infrastructure and expect people to put up with it. I was really hoping for Xmas to get $100 to play for real money as a gift. I have played at pokerroom for over a year now, checking it out, making sure I was happy to commit real money to play.

Guess what pokerroom – you’re proper fucked now if you think you’ve got a chance of getting a single cent off me in real money since not one of your agents will confirm that cash games are hosted on servers with a lower load.

I’m a whining crybaby when I lose at anything, but having to fold AA because your site can’t handle traffic means that you are actively costing me money (or would be in a real cash game) because you are too cheap to invest in infrastructure.

Now I realise I am not the bastion of all knowledge that is good and pokery, but if I may proffer this little nugget for anyone who wants to play poker online – at least check that the site can handle the friggin’ loads before you commit real money to it. In this case, that means don’t even bother with pokerroom.com.

I have emailed support@pokerroom.com linking this site and asking for their feedback. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Edit : This is how bad the connection is tonight.

What a joke

And yes, two hands later I got AQs and timed out. Against Mr. AllInAllTheTime to my left … goddamnit. In the end it was unplayable – 20 hands, 7 timeouts, 1 complete disconnect – I quit the game before I had a stroke. And look what cropped up in the client software :

Yep - looks stable to me :/

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

About this Post
Permalink | Trackback | | Print This Article | 3 Comments on Pokerroom.com support (or lack thereof)

A Moral Dilemma Part II

Posted by bb on Sunday 5th of October 2008 at 12:40 pm.
Filed Under News

I recently blogged about a moral dilemma that I was having concerning whether or not to contact the hard working author of some software to advise them about a fundamental weakness in their licensing scheme.

Well – I broke 🙂 I was using the software last night and exploring some of the new featurees and I decided now was the time. So I emailed the author last night and explained to him that I had found a flaw and wondered if we could work together to resolve it. I am perfectly happy to sign NDAs as long as he is happy to promise not to perform any legal shenanigans.

I’ll keep you updated with how I get on (as of yet he has not replied) – I hope he takes the friendly email in the spirit it was sent, one of wishing to work together.

(No Ratings Yet)

About this Post
Permalink | Trackback | | Print This Article | Leave a Comment

MCP, MCSA, MCSA:Security, MCSE, MCSE:Security, CompTIA Security+

Posted by bb on Thursday 25th of September 2008 at 10:41 am.
Filed Under News

aka bb goes legit!

Just got back from Atlanta where I have successfully completed all of the above qualifications.

A big shout goes out to Easy E (the O.G.), my brother Ray, ex-SpecOps blokey Dave T and all the other guys and gals I met whilst out there.

Props to ex-Marine Diego who made the rookie error of challenging the Brit to competitive drinking, only to disappear completely before the end of the evening. Now I’m not sure but I think that normally means I win by default.

Apologies to Jenna and Ray for throwing them in the pool. Many thanks to Ernest for taking me shooting and generally looking after me. Including introducing me to Crown Royal and Red Bull. Which meant I would also spend a whole day in class wondering when it would like to stop spinning.

Good luck to Fighter Pilot Doug and mad Dan who were staying on to do more study.

Thanks for the good times. Time to dust off the CV and polish it up with my new sparkly qualifications.

(No Ratings Yet)

About this Post
Permalink | Trackback | | Print This Article | Leave a Comment

1:21:27

Posted by bb on Tuesday 2nd of September 2008 at 11:34 am.
Filed Under News

This post is purely to say how proud I am that Mrs bb and Friend of Minty both did the Nike 10k run in London this last weekend in the stunning time of 1hr 21mins and 27sec – a rate of 8min/km.

Both of them have had interrupted training schedules and Mrs bb was 50:50 to even make the run due to some cold/flu like symptoms she was suffering with a few days before.

But they both struggled through the pouring rain and cold conditions to post a time that was considerably better than they hoped – and that is all one can ask of them.

CONGRATULATIONS to the both of you!!! The Kersh and I are both very, VERY, proud of you both.

WELL DONE

(No Ratings Yet)

About this Post
Permalink | Trackback | | Print This Article | Leave a Comment

« go back — keep looking »

Recently Written

Categories

Archives

Blogroll

Admin