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Black Belt Poker Grading Group
Group Info
Grading starts:
1st Feb 2010
Grading ends:
14th Match 2010
On Monday, January 18, 2010, players commenced a Pre-Grading Selection Week in order to earn entry into the 2010 Black Belt Poker Grading. 20 players completed the requested hours, thus becoming the Dublin Two-O. Up for grabs are three Irish Open packages worth €6,500 and promotion to Blue Belt status. Watch this space to follow their progress as it happens!
Members
Gerard Harraghy
Jamie Burland AKA StilettoMafiosa
Javed Ghazi
Ermyas (uSayMrE) Birru
ramsey ajram
Nikhil Persaud
Andy (Redkite) Brisland
Joe Roberts
Rob Jarrett-Smith
Kevin Williams
Mike Carroll
Jennifer Mason
Gavin (TFMonty007) Hall
lee clarke
Mike Shaw
Owen Robinson
Simon Mairs
Martin Rice
richard hinds
John Hayes
Adam 'Snoopy' Goulding
Carey Hollick
Black Belt Poker Grading Group
9 Feb
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Adam 'Snoopy' Goulding posted on  6 Feb, 11:10pm
List your nemesis here. Mine is Bruno94x.
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Jamie Burland AKA StilettoMafiosa posted on 9 Feb, 1:24am
embarrased to say! don't worry I aint going to bed till i get out of it!!
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Jamie Burland AKA StilettoMafiosa posted on 9 Feb, 4:56am
Ok I've got myself half out of it, but I think a quick nap really is in order. i'll be back at noon for the rest!
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Gavin (TFMonty007) Hall posted on 9 Feb, 6:04am
nice one keep it going
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Gavin (TFMonty007) Hall posted on  5 Feb, 2:14am
The Phil Galfond article Nik was on about.

http://www.bluffmagazine.com/magazine/You-are-bad-at-poker...-Yes,-You-Phil-Galfond-1133.htm
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Simon Mairs posted on 5 Feb, 4:09pm
Just read it. Cheers for the link. Great article, ending up spending about 3 hours I should have been playing reading his other stuff on there. Especially like how he emphasises having a clear thought process for every decision. I think its so easy (especially for multi-tablers) to get into robotic thought processes in certain situations, where in fact there might be a better solution had we thought it through properly.
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Gavin (TFMonty007) Hall posted on 8 Feb, 11:08pm
http://www.bluffmagazine.com/magazine/You%2Dare%2DBAD%2Dat%2DPoker%2DPhil%2DGalfond-735.htm

Nik posted the 2nd part of the article in the White Belt Group. I assume it was supposed to be in here.
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richard hinds posted on 9 Feb, 1:35am
when I first read this it was amazing. Now it seems dumb that he didn't charge people for this article, it really is critical to being a successful player
8 Feb
Martin Rice posted on  7 Feb, 10:21am
Congrats to grader Gerard Harraghy - dau 3 of European Deepstack with 1.5m.  27 players remain.  Tid.

I had another swingy session yday.  Finding it quite tough to have a solid day of profit.  Still finished up and in prof from wen grading began but just want it to be a bit more level.  Gna start playin in a few hours and will post my skype details here.  If ne1 is available to sweat me, it could be exactly wat the doctor ordered!!
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Kevin Williams posted on 8 Feb, 4:01pm
congrats! ul on FT bubble, what was the $$$?
Joe Roberts posted on 8 Feb, 6:35pm
Ah ul Gerard, hope you're not feeling too gutted. Still wp though, nice to cash in a decent size tourney in Ireland. Can't look bad on your CV at the moment.
Gerard Harraghy posted on 8 Feb, 9:32pm
thanks guys, 465 players started and 10th was good for €3600. Managed to build up a big stack approaching bubble time and was in touching distance at the top until I had KK cracked by 45o with 12 players left in a pot that had 25% of the total chips in play in the middle :(

Gonna have to go 9 better next weekend in manchester :D
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lee clarke posted on  8 Feb, 4:54pm
just wanted to say gl to everyone during grading, im not going to bore people with the details but time issues mean i will unfortunatley be dropping from the grading.

i wish you all the best and may the best men/woman win :)
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Kevin Williams posted on 8 Feb, 6:58pm
That's unfortunate Lee, gl with the new baby.
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Gavin (TFMonty007) Hall posted on 8 Feb, 7:55pm
ul lee nice to have met you and gl with the baby
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Andy (Redkite) Brisland posted on 8 Feb, 9:21pm
Likewise Lee, all the best, I hope we still see you in the BBP games :-)
Joe Roberts posted on  8 Feb, 6:34pm
Anyone playing 6 max know how many hands 80 table hours is?  I was guessing that at about 80 hands and hour we're looking at about 6400 hands a week.  But that seems a little low, so I'm concerned I've just vastly underestimated it.  Can anyone tell me I'm wrong?
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Kevin Williams posted on 8 Feb, 6:57pm
Um I did 6615 in 80 hours playing 6-max so you're not far off.
Joe Roberts posted on  6 Feb, 10:57pm
I'd be interested in hearing when people think the best times of the day/week to play cash games are.  As a ft student with, shall we say, flexible hours, I can pretty much play whenever I want.  I always assumed that after 7pm weekdays and then all day on the weekends would be when the games were softest.  Anyone got any thoughts?
Owen Robinson posted on 7 Feb, 6:40pm
I find that weekends as a whole are a lot weaker and, I'd agree that maybe after midnight the games are a bit looser but perhaps not as many running as usual. It definitely isn't a science though, it's hard to know why some days it is all regs and some days fish.
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Mike Shaw posted on 8 Feb, 12:47pm
On weekdays it seems to me that after 8pm is generally a bit softer... but don't have enough data to evidence my feeling
Joe Roberts posted on 8 Feb, 6:37pm
I decided to play during the day today, and the games at NL50 were actually pretty good. If you jumped around a bit you could easily get at least one clear soft spot at every table.
Joe Roberts posted at  3:04pm
Anyone fancy a sweat session sometime today?  Any time in the next 6 hours is good for me.
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Simon Mairs posted on  7 Feb, 7:26pm
Firstly like to say how much I enjoyed the workshop. Good group and I'm hoping to learn a lot. Was chatting with a couple of graders afterwards and we bounced around a few ideas that they reckoned were worth bringing up for the next 1, so here goes.

Whilst its great fun discussing Ivey and co, there's such a lot of private meta game stuff going on between these lot that a lot of the decisions made are not that relevant to our levels. What about reviewing some grader hands as well / instead? It would be great for the player to get the feedback and good for the graders to be able to quiz the plyer on why he did what he did (it was obviously helpful that Nik talked to Andrew Feldman about his hand). Maybe everyone could submit a hand to Snoopy and the powers that be could pick the most interesting if people think this is a good idea?

When we did the heads-up group sweating session, again, great fun, but not many people are super confident in that format. I did the a pokercamp type thing, and they had a similar type of thing, basically we split up into 9/10 player groups, with 1 of the pros as dealer, and just played. If anything interesting happened, we would discuss it at the end. If you folded at any point but were unsure of the decision, you just hung onto your cards and discussed it at the end. Everyone did a feedback survey at the end, and this was by far the most popular bit. Was great to get instantaneous feedback from a top pro, and everyone gained a lot.

Anyway, just thought I'd throw them out there for discussion. Again, in no way being critical, I really enjoyed the day, but as we were told, this is kind of a new thing for everybody, and surely any feedback from our side will come in useful.


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Gavin (TFMonty007) Hall posted on 7 Feb, 7:55pm
I can see what you are saying Simon, but overall I think it is more importnant to be able to discuss something from a neutral point of view. With hands ppl are involve din then its hard to detach themselves and come up with an impassionate response.

Yes they have a lot of levelling going on, but I think the thought process that are being used and the analysis that we provided was very good. How far were we off from getting Feldman's and Ivey's thinking?

Whilst hands that we play may be more relevant atm but surely this process is about elevating our thinking to a higher level?

Having said all of that I can see the benefit of having the input from the ppl inolved in the hand directly. Rather than the odd hand or 2, how bout we play a STT or something then the key hands of the tourney be analyzed?

Maybe a split between some live hands and some grader hands, dik lots of potential ideas out there, but generally I think keeping things simple is prob best.
Martin Rice posted on 7 Feb, 9:01pm
I actually thought tht was a great part of the workshop. While the level was far greater than what we are used to, it was great to try and raise your game and think on that higher level. Also the only way for everyone to be aware of the players image and history.
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Mike Shaw posted on 8 Feb, 12:45pm
Something I was thinking of doing as a training aid for my friends was to play with all hands showing face up.... never did work out all the details - but may be worth a try in workshop environment perhaps ?

Won't be a lot of bluffing I guess ;-) but at least we can verbalize our decisions in running...
7 Feb
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Andy (Redkite) Brisland posted on  6 Feb, 0:06am
I thought I posted this earlier ? so sorry if it has appeared elsewhere ..... I have an idea for an article. Has anyone successfully networked their PT3/HEM Database so that there is one central DB and the stats can be automatically picked up from whatever PC you are playing on ? 

I remember reading some articles on the PT3 Forums but I found it very difficult to follow, if anyone has done it and is willing to share the process and maybe use me as a guinea-pig, I feel we could put together a useful article.
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Andy (Redkite) Brisland posted on 7 Feb, 7:27pm
Yep that was me, my PT3 support ticket was answered with the same answer, when the Deepstack finishes I will download the update.
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Andy (Redkite) Brisland posted on 7 Feb, 9:56pm
The PT3 Update today imports non Dollar hands ok now - I wonder what exchange rates they use though ? and how do they get the ex rate ?
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Gavin (TFMonty007) Hall posted on 7 Feb, 11:05pm
yeah have never worked that one out or found an option to change them.
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Andy (Redkite) Brisland posted on  5 Feb, 10:32am
BlackBeltPoker Graders storm the VIC and run off with all the money :-)

Well, OK not all the money, but 1st and 2nd place in the £100 f/o ended up in the hands of RedKite'Hit the flop and murder the Turn'Andy Brisland :-)and extremely unlucky Richard Hinds ;-) I will let him tell you what a donkey luckbox I am !!!!!

There were a good few BBPers taking part, some of us actually used our chips to play Poker, while one of us used his Chips as a place-holder while on serious business around the Casino.

I think Gerard and Javed made the last two tables as well, apologies if I missed any others that got near to the FT.

I am 100% convinced that if I had not been on the workshop yesterday I would have got nowhere near the money, situations arose that were directly related to our discussions. Especially me turning the nut flush and getting paid by the K high turned flush.

There will be a blog going up soon ..... I need sleep ..... I stayed on and made £150 on the 1/1 cash tables as well :-)
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Andy (Redkite) Brisland posted on 7 Feb, 9:41am
I will admit that ;-) Also as the Final Table progressed, I had the luxury of being in the top 3 most of the way, Richard played extremely well as the table reduced. He made some very good moves, I was learning a lot tbh. Not my fault that the old guy slow played his AA ;-) and dumped off a load of chips to my QT suited flopping a str8, then I think I knocked out 4th place by reading his weak allin correctly and my 60/40 holding up.

3-Handed, the Vic Regular kept going on about a 3-way split, but by then I had enough chips to be patient and finally got all his as well, Richard was facing an uphill task as it was around 3-1 chip lead for me.

His first chance of a double up was as described, I think the Board made a straight ? and then , well K6 is my new favourite hand as it made a full hous to beat the KQ.
Owen Robinson posted on 7 Feb, 4:53pm
Well done lads, how did you find the standard overall?
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Gavin (TFMonty007) Hall posted on 7 Feb, 6:35pm
depends on what you expect the standard to be. On the whole not a lot different to 25 n 50 FO's u find at DTD or the int, and not a whole dif to a WSOP Circuit Event I played in. They all seem to play about the same, few donks, few avg ppl the odd good one, jus dif level of cash to burn on a buyin.
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Simon Mairs posted at  5:53pm
Which of you guys are trying STT's at the moment. Would enjoy a team viewer session with any other push / fold types out there.
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lee clarke posted on  5 Feb, 9:51am
My msn is Kidclarke77@hotmail.com and is same for skype if any graders want to add me, feel free to use this as a msn skype thread if you want boys n girls -) and now its in the right section oopppss
John Hayes posted on 6 Feb, 4:16pm
Skype: aerotop
MSN : rg252st@msn.com
Martin Rice posted on 7 Feb, 10:47am
skype: martin-rice
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Gavin (TFMonty007) Hall posted on 7 Feb, 4:51pm
apparently skype is not my email addy but : tfmonty
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lee clarke posted on  6 Feb, 9:25pm
whats going on with lack of tables in 25/50c 6 max lobby tonight?? big lack of tables and all seem to be 50bb r 200bb, checked my filters nothing wrong there,,is there something wrong because i have never seen so few esp on a weekend night
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Adam 'Snoopy' Goulding posted on 6 Feb, 11:12pm
Yeah, confused the hell out of me too and led to huge lists. I'm assuming it was a temporary bug of some sort.
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Gavin (TFMonty007) Hall posted on 7 Feb, 0:59am
sitting down with 300bb and getting stacked was a bad idea :(
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Carey Hollick posted on 7 Feb, 4:04am
yeah earlier only the lowest cash games were showing then i unclicked everything and had no filters on and they showed up again...must be the software.
Rob Jarrett-Smith posted on  5 Feb, 1:03pm
I know we did a show of hands yesterday on who was doing SNG's/6-Max Cash/Full Ring Cash/Heads Up, etc for the Grading but I didn't know enough people's names to jot down who was doing the same as me (6-Max Cash).

So if anyone who is doing shorthanded cash games wants to chat about some spots in hands, or do a sweat session etc, please let me know on here or via PM. I've done this before and found it a really good way of looking at things from a different perspective.

Cheers....
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Carey Hollick posted on 5 Feb, 8:31pm
I was doing 6 max cash today in the afternoon...if you ever have a chance to play between 9 a.m.-3 p.m. there are some really bad players on plh and well nlh as well...
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Kevin Williams posted on 7 Feb, 1:23am
yeh i'm a 6-max-er and up for this too. Later in the week would suit me best now.
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Adam 'Snoopy' Goulding posted on 7 Feb, 3:14am
Hi, Rob. I'd be keen to do this sometime next week. Let me know if you get an opening.