Poker bankroll management, building and strategy – online poker guide

Merry X-mas and a Happy New Year

Saturday, December 24th, 2011 | Off topic | No Comments

Merry X-mas and a Happy New Year to all readers of pokerbankrollblog.com. It’s been a so so year for this blog, as I haven’t gotten around to writing as many poker articles as I would have liked. Perhaps it’s because I’ve reached the limit of what I’m able to write about. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been busy with a bunch of other projects. Who knows?

One thing’s for sure: next year I’ll reach my milestone of 500 articles and then new milestones have to settled upon. Perhaps one of them will be to sell this blog to someone who can take it to the next level.

By the way, in 2012 spammers will still not be allowed to post comments on my blog. It still amazes me how many gut-wrenchingly bad spam comments I receive every single day. JUST FORGET IT. I will not publish your crap!

Torrential rain in Copenhagen last night left our basement flooded

Sunday, July 3rd, 2011 | Off topic | No Comments

Yesterday saw some crazy weather in downtown Copenhagen. Over 150mm rain and 8000 lightning strikes in a couple of hours left streets and basements flooded – our included . Hopefully this natural occurrence of bad luck mean I will win the Sunday Storm on PokerStars starting right about now.

FML – two left shoes

Sunday, May 1st, 2011 | Off topic | 1 Comment

FML!!! Spent two hours yesterday trawling a special design outlet event in Copenhagen for a black pair of sneakers. Found a lovely pair of Converse sneakers reduced to less than half the price. When I opened the box today I found that it contained two left shoes. Arghhhhhh!!!!

Pick up your trash you slob!

Saturday, April 9th, 2011 | Off topic | No Comments

I live in Copenhagen, which I think is supposed to be one of the cleaner capitals in the World. As an example, the water in the harbor is clean enough to swim in. However the general public here seems to be determined to ruin this image by throwing their trash on the streets, around the lakes in the city and in parks. There’s really no excuse for doing this, since we have plenty of bins placed everywhere in the city. Today, when I was walking home from the gym, I saw one slob unwrap his ice cream and simply throw the paper on the street. FFS dude there was a bin 20 meters down the street!! I wanted to shout at him: “Hey you dropped something you wanker” but he was significantly larger than me and was wearing gold necklaces. Instead I decided to write a rant on my blog. One way of solving this could be to heavily fine people for throwing their trash on the streets. They do this is Singapore and it’s clean as hell there.

In the meantime here’s a request to the general public: “Pick up your trash you slobs!!!!!”

Blogging milestone reached – 10000 visitors in one month

Monday, April 4th, 2011 | Off topic, Poker Articles | No Comments

Since I started my blog way back in 2008, my goals have been to accumulate 1000 quality articles on poker and to get more than 10000 visitors in one month. I’m stoked to say that yesterday, I finally reached 10000 visitors in one month. There’s still some 534 articles to go before I reach my second goal. Maybe by this time, I will have reached my new traffic goal of 15000 visitors per month. Thanks to all of you for reading the stuff I post.

George Turner’s 10×10 bodybuilding program

Monday, September 13th, 2010 | Off topic | No Comments

LOL...had to find a picture of some fitness babes for this article

After a 2 month or so workout break due to a screwed up back (guess I’m not 20 years old anymore…sigh) I recently returned to the gym again. This time I wanted to try something different in comparison to my usual 3 exercises with 3 sets of increasing/decreasing weights per muscle group. I stumbled across George Turner’s 10×10 bodybuilding program which has been used on and off by bodybuilders the last few decades. The main feature of George Turner’s 10×10 program is volume. Apparently muscles react very well to large volume in single exercises. The theory is that muscle groups gain mass and become very strong when they are repeatedly activation through the same motions. George Turner himself wrote the following statement about the 10×10 program in an old Ironman article: “Not only will you become huge, you will also be a strong motherfucker”.

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Another benefit is that the program is more or less idiot proof in terms of remembering the different exercises. You will be using a single basic exercise for most muscle groups. The program is divided into a 2 on 1 off – 1 on 1 off split which means that each muscle group is worked through twice every ten days. I haven’t quite managed to stick to this split yet, so my routine has been limited to 3 workouts per week. The program is a slightly modified version of George Turner’s original 10×10 program:

Day 1: Chest and Back (+ABS)

• Bench press: 10 sets x 10 repetitions
• Bent over barbell rows: 10 sets x 10 repetitions

Day 2: Legs and deadlift

• Squat: 6 sets x 10 repetitions
• Leg curls: 6 sets x 10 repetitions
• Deadlift: 6 sets x 6 repetitions (pyramid style)
• Calf raises: 6 sets x 10 repetitions

Day 3: Biceps, triceps and shoulders (+ABS)

• Seated dumbbell shoulder press: 10 sets x 10 repetitions
• Dumbbell incline curls in super set with French press: 10 sets x 10 repetitions for both biceps and triceps

As you can see, legs and deadlift stand out a bit since they do not involve 10×10. This is because 10×10 in all these exercises would simply be too much volume.

Keep in mind that the name of the game here is volume, so the sets your take should not be to failure. If for example your maximum 10×01 bench press weight is 100kg you should start the first set with 90kg and then gradually move down in weight.

1. 10x90kg
2. 10x90kg
3. 10x85kg
4. 10x85kg
5. etc

The pyramid style sets in deadlift are a bit different. Say your 6 repetition maximum in deadlift is 120kg, then the sets could look as follows:

1. 6x50kg
2. 6x70kg
3. 6x90kg
4. 6x100kg
5. 6x110kg
6. 6x120kg

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Regarding increasing weight in the exercises, your aim should be to increase the maximum weight with 2,5kg after each cycle. I recommend buying a small notebook to keep track of your progress.

So far I’m liking this program a lot….I’ve been increasing in weight every week and you can feel the next day that the workout has been effective.

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Strange dreams

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 | Off topic | No Comments

For some unknown reason I have extremely strange sci-fi dreams and most of the times I can remember them the next day. The dream I had yesterday was stranger than usual, so I thought I would write it down and share it. Interpretations are welcomed.

The dream starts on a holiday to Egypt with my girlfriend. In a parking lot we discover an entrance to an ancient tomb where we find two buried people wearing elaborate bracelets. We grab the bracelets and other valuable items from the tomb to get them evaluated – perhaps they could be sold to pay for our holiday. It turns out that the tomb along with all the items inside were fake. What a bummer.

Anyway the bracelet episode leads us on to a nearby mine where miners have gone missing under suspicious circumstances. My girlfriend, being an expert in ground radar analysis (which was completely new to me), suggests that we check it out to see if we can solve the mystery. We arrive on scene underground together with the miners, who inform us that terrifying mutant rhinos started appearing in the tunnels a few weeks ago when they started blasting into a new area of the rock.

On the way to the control room we barely escape a particularly nasty looking mutant. Inside the control room my girlfriend sets up her ground radar equipment and soon finds an abnormally large density of amino acids directly underneath the floor of the control room. We all start digging frantically and soon discover the remains of what looks to be an alien skeleton. It appears this skeleton infiltrates all the rock in the new blast area. We start excavating the area with the help of a giant laser. The work proceeds rather slowly in the beginning because we constantly have to dodge the mutant rhinos. Now here’s where the dream takes a strange twist. At some point the laser unearths a huge skull like feature in the skeleton with an opening in the top. Suddenly the mutant rhinos start jumping into the skull one by one. As they do this, the laser picks up speed and we find ourselves throwing everything organic we can find into the skull.

In no time the laser has excavated the entire skeleton and within seconds it morphs into a pink convertible Cadillac and Elvis. It turns out that the entire mining incident has been part of the grand opening celebration of a new underground casino. End of dream.

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My favorite blogs from Blogcatalog

Monday, January 18th, 2010 | Off topic | 5 Comments

There are literally millions of blogs online today and most of them have very little to offer me. I have very rarely found blogs which I find interesting enough to visit on a regular basis (besides my own of course). A weeks weeks ago I therefore set out to find some quality blogs through Blogcatalog – a social blogger community. Below is a list of the 9 blogs I found, and a short summary of each individual blog.

Emancave -an electronic version of the sacred mancave

A mancave is a place where men can be men, and indulge in all the things women find stupid. The emancave is an electronic version of a real-life mancave. You will find a bunch of articles here, all relating to important man stuff. Women should only enter with extreme caution.

My life’s To-do list

Danny put together a list of all the things he wants to do in his life. This is a great place to find inspiration if you are lacking big projects in your life.

iCan’t Internet – All a blogger needs

I’m a blogger, and chances are if you’re reading this post you have a blog of your own as well. On the ICan’t Internet blog you will find many helpful articles on how to improve your blog and promote it through online social networks.

Retro-Gaming and Emulation – Memories recent and modern of retro games

Growing up during the 80′s and 90′s I have seen my fair share of great games for the Commodore 64, Atari, Amiga 500, Sega Mega Drive and so on. Bubble Bobble is still one of my all time favorite games . This blog let’s you take a trip down your gaming memory lane.

Conditional Cognition – because knowledge is not absolute

Sounds trippy? It is! Is the author simply over thinking trivial everyday happenings, or is there a deeper understanding to be found in the world we live in. You be the judge.

Young Cadence – University of Music

Jeff and Robbie made this great blog about music. Browse through their posts and if you’re lucky you will find your next favorite artist.

Hot Aussie Chick – Poker Down Under and Every Where Else

Most poker bloggers are male, but that does not automatically guarantee quality. Here’s a great poker blog written by Danielle, director of PR in an online gaming software company. Definitely worth a visit.

POKERKNAVE’s blog

Follow the thoughts of PokerKnave – a professional gambler who pursues the 3 B’s – birds (women that is), booze and betting, but not necessarily in that order. I will be posting selected blog post from PokerKnave’s blog on a regular basis….now you’re warned

Poker Hot Chick – The Princess of Poker

Lina takes pride in writing quality posts about poker and making money online. Combine this with loads of great pictures and an good blog design and you have a poker blog worth following!

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

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How (not) to deal with the slow customer support at UK2net

Sunday, November 1st, 2009 | Off topic | 19 Comments

October 27th the pokerbrb.com domain was up for renewal with our host UK2net. Somehow UK2net managed to screw up the DNS for the domain which resulted in our site crashing for 5 days until now. In the process they have managed to charge us 3 times for the domain renewal. This short summary sets the scene for the 5 days of frustration we went through until our site came back online today. I’m writing this piece because I do not want you to make the same mistakes we did when dealing with the customer support at UK2net.

The customer support at UK2net works through a ticket system which they seem to be very proud of. McKay Howell from the technical support team at UK2net explained to me in a very nice way how the system works:

“I would like to take this quick opportunity to remind you how our ticketing systems work. Our support technicians answer requests on a first come, first served basis which means that when you first submit a ticket it will be at the very bottom of the queue to be answered and gradually work its way to the top. However, each time you submit a response before we can reply to your ticket just causes it to be pushed back down to the bottom. We are very rarely getting a chance to even look at your ticket because you have replied numerous times hour after hour and this just sends it right back to the bottom of the queue. We recommend that you simply submit one request with all of the relevant information at once in order to get the quickest response.”

So basically you are supposed to send in a ticket and wait patiently until they answer. This could be in hours or days…there’s really no way of knowing because there is very rarely an online live support available. I forgot to mention that if you by mistake (or simply because you did not know any better) send in a ticket to a wrong department you have to wait until the ticket is passed through the elaborate Uk2net support system to the correct department. In the meantime your site is down and you are losing customers and potential income every minute that goes by. See how frustration can build up?

I’m afraid to say that in my case I was not very patient and in fact this caused delays in fixing our site as McKay Howell points out:

“In the future PLEASE only submit one ticket on the same issue. You are correct in saying that this is very confusing for our technicians. You have also submitted tickets on the same issue to numerous departments and this causes even greater confusion. Please note that it does not speed the resolution of these issues any further and indeed actually takes longer for us to solve as we have to track several tickets to determine if another technician already replied to you.”

Sorry Uk2net…my bad. I can see how the slow process of fixing our site is totally my fault. In addition I would also like to apologize for some of the childish support tickets I submitted during my mental meltdown…..brace yourselves this might get ugly.

I started my dialogue with Uk2net mildly agitated, but still relatively calm

Shaheen

When can I expect this problem to be solved????? I am completely at
your mercy here and hove no way to fix the problem myself. You have
made a mistake that is costing me money every minute. Where’s your
sense of responsibility for your customers? I cannot believe it can
take this long to solve the problem. Do something!!!!

Mark

I would really appreciate if you could tell me what I can do to speed
up the process of activating my domain. We run a league and today is
the start of November’s competition. It is critical for our success
that our site is up and running again.
You have made a mistake…please fix it.

Mark

Then after a few days of downtime for our site things started to escalate. Especially because UK2net assured me the problem was solved which is obviously wasn’t. Guys seriously, do yourself the favor and go the the site url before you claim that the problem is fixed.

Hi

I was told my site www.pokerbrb.com would be up and running again this
morning. As this is clearly not the case I would like to know when it will
be up. I am amazed you have taken this long to solve the problem. Your
customer service sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark

On the 4th day I finally lose my mind and go mental on the UK2net support system

My site is still down. It is absolutely critical that I get it up and running tomorrow. WHY IS IS SO DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO FIX THE PROBLEM????? WHY DON*T YOU ANSWER THE TICKETS?????

FIX MY SITE!!!!!!!!!

You’re responsible for my site being down for 3 days now. Do you have any sense of responsibility? FIX IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How fast can we fix the pokerbrb.com website….doesn’t that sound like a fun game to play?

LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA ……I want my site fixed, I want my site fixed…I will not use you as a host anymore, I will not use you as a host anymore LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA

You cannot seriously mean that is takes you in excess of 3 days to update the DNS of my site. Get you act together for fucks sake. You are supposed to be a support not a bunch of headless amateurs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When looking back on the incident I cannot help but feel a bit ashamed. I mean these guys are just sitting there trying to do their job the best they can and then some basket case owner of site which has only been down for 5 days starts spamming the support system with angry messages. Sorry UK2net. I will end this article with my final feedback to UK2net and just want to say that if anyone from UK2net find their way to my blog I hope you take my feedback seriously and implement some systems to improve your support so you don’t have to deal with people like me in the future.

Hi McKay

Well it was about time you fixed my site. I cannot believe it has
taken 5 days to fix a simple DNS error. I recent the fact that you try
to push the blame of the slow fix back on me. It is YOUR
responsibility and only YOUR responsibility to fix sites that are down
ASAP. People lose money every day when their sites are down.
When people’s livelihood is on the line they get frustrated when the
problems do not get fixed. This is amplified when the only way to get
into contact with you is a support ticket system. And even more so
when it seems that all that is happening is you guys bouncing tickets
back and forth between your different departments.
I do not see anywhere on the support website that one should only send
one ticket. Hence the most obvious reaction to a severe problem is to
send as many tickets as possible to wake you up.
You say that it takes longer time to fix the problem when people send
multiple tickets but I do not buy that. If one of your technicians had
taken the responsibility they owe to their customers and checked up on
my site on a regular basis then this problem would have been solved a
lot faster.
I am not the only person who has experienced problems with your
support. For one of my friends it took 30 days to get his site back
online.

IMO the biggest problem with your support is that one feels completely
powerless when the only thing one can do is sit and wait for a ticket
to be answered. In addition one feels resentment because you make
people pay for mistakes you make. This does not paint a positive
picture of your company.
You would benefit SOO much from having a 24/7 online live support
system where technicians can be contacted directly.

I am sorry to say that this whole incident has left us with a very
negative feeling about UK2net and we are currently discussing our
options regarding changing host. Sure our site works now, but what
about next time you make a mistake….will it be offline for weeks then?

I hope you send this email to the person responsible for support and
customer service. You owe it to yourself to improve your company.

Mark

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Holiday thoughts and recollections

Thursday, August 20th, 2009 | Off topic | No Comments

As you may know I recently came home from a 1 week holiday on Skiathos, an island in Greece. When you are on holiday and lie at the beach all day long you get a chance to reflect over a lot of things. In my case I managed to write 7 articles mostly about poker but I also had some random thoughts about holidays in general. In addition to sharing these thoughts with you I thought I would also give a general review of Skiathos as a holiday destination combined with some pictures we took during our holiday.

My first thought was spawned when we started comparing what we had seen so far on Skiathos with one of the best holidays we ever had in Croatia. I have come to realize that you should try not to compare the holiday you are presently on to great holidays you have had in the past. You run the risk of belittling your current holiday which can lead to disappointment and regret. In my opinion you should live the moment while you’re on holiday and reflect after you return home.

Also I realized that when you make your holiday budget you should remember to take into account the living expenses you would had at home if you weren’t on holiday. These living expenses should be mentally withdrawn from the amount of money you spend on your holiday.

Granted they are not the best thoughts I have had  by a long shot, but hey what do you expect from a lazy beached out brain.

Now on to my review of Skiathos. On the positive side the beaches and weather were great. Crystal clear water combined with sandy beaches fringed with green pine trees make for a great setting. Our favorite beach was Eleni so if you ever have a chance to visit it….do it.

The local buses run every 15 minutes from 8 in the morning to 9 in the evening. With only one main road on the island it is pretty easy to find your way even if you are orientational retarded like me. You can rent both cars, motorbikes, scooters and bicycles on the island but if you stay in a fairly central hotel this isn’t really necessary to get around. If you like tormenting yourself try renting bicycles and take the main road to the beach of your choice.

On the minus side it seems that many businesses on Skiathos have grown accustomed to a steady flow of “fresh” tourists. As a result business is taken for granted and people do not take pride in what they do. In our experience this is especially the case in restaurants. You would have a hard time finding a restaurant in Denmark where the staff does not ask you if everything is to your satisfaction during your meal. On Skiathos however this is pretty common. Therefore if your food sucks, and it will, make sure to let the staff know as soon as possible. You won’t get an opportunity to complain presented to you by the staff on a silver plate.

You may have guessed that we had crappy food served to us on more than one occasion. I would like to take the opportunity to say to the people at Mouragio that the lamb kleftiko I ordered was dry, uninspired and pricey. In addition you took way too long to get us the bill and give us back our change. And why on earth do you put bread on table without informing people that you will bill them for it if they eat it?

To the owner of Mitsa’s house I would like to say that your grilled lamb platter was a f…ng joke. It contained 80% fat and bones and 20% meat. Your rice was dry because it was heated from a frozen mixture and your bread tasted like cardboard. If you lose customers due to this article I will be the happiest man in the world.

If you ever go to Skiathos there is only one restaurant we find worth recommending. Maria’s pizza close to the church near the old harbour. The staff is friendly and attentive and the pizzas and pasta dishes are great!

As for organized tours we found several boat tours of the island. At 20€ they are good value as you get to see all the beaches of Skiathos and swin at some of them as well. If you’re totally beached out consider taking a day trip to the island of Skopelos where the main town is more scenic and less busy than Skiathos. The fare takes 1 hour each way and costs about 24€ in total.

Finally, if you are not a fan on mosquito bites that start out as harmless small spots but then all of a sudden explode into giant mounds of pain, get a room with air condition and keep the doors and windows closed at night. Also do yourself the favor of taking a round of your room before you go to bed and kill any little f…ckers that may have sneaked in.

Old harbour of Skiathos

Mandraki beach

Scenic view on the island of Skopelos

Maria's pizza....best place to eat in Skiathos

A very rare sight of me riding a horse (horses scare the bejesus out of me)

Trying to avoid the bloody mosquitos

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