Christopher Hamilton

Apparently there was a huge power outage out at the Typepad data center in san Francisco. The details of which you can find here if you are interested.

I think there may still be a few issues, so if you find the site down, or if you are unable to comment over the next few days, that’s why ..

It’s a good thing I’ve been too busy to post anything recently.

I’m not a high roller, in fact the levels I play poker at are very small. My online bankroll has never really gone up over $400, and my biggest live win was £400.

Since the levels I play at, (usually $16 Turbo SNG’s, although considering the bankroll it really should be smaller buy-ins), don’t give me a great deal of FPP/VPP’s it takes a while to get anywhere near the next VIP level on PokerStars. This month, I decided that I was going to play as much as I could, and get myself up from the basic VIP level, to SilverStar status.

It’s not a hugely daunting task, but one that can be difficult if your not playing well, or watching players catch one or two outers against you with a frequency that is becoming painful. I won’t go on about that because no-one wants to hear about bad beats.

Another issue I have in getting to the SilverStar VIP Level, is that I really don’t play online for extended periods, or with the frequency that is required to gather 1500VPP’s in a month. I’ve tried to change that this month, by playing as frequently as possible, multi-tableing, and having a cash table running while I’m playing my usual SNG’s.

In doing this, I’ve managed to get a third of the way in just over a week, and I haven’t completely destroyed my bankroll doing it. Now it’s still not the healthiest bankroll I’ve ever seen, but I’m cashing about 50% of the time which is keeping it stable.

I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to get the rest of the VPP’s I need this month, but I am determined to make it in the next few months if I don’t.

One thing that puzzles me though, is the fact that I’m so concerned about it. It’s not as if there are any monetary advantages to reaching SilverStar, in fact there’s not even an amount of skill involved. If your bankroll is large enough, you could bleed it away and still reach that level without any effort.

I’m going to have to think about why this has become such a big deal for me recently, it’s a strange one. Until I figure it out though, I’m going to continue to try to reach that 1.5k VPP mark and become a PokerStars SilverStar.

Technorati Tags: Poker, PokerStars, SilverStar

London wasn’t as bad as I had expected it to be. We got a lot of work done, and managed to go out and enjoy ourselves in the evenings, although Sunday was a very stressful time as our Edinburgh server room went into melt-down causing huge problems. We managed to get it all resolved and thankfully nothing was damaged.

On another note, I started running again last night after a few weeks off. It’s not so easy to get started again, but I had somewhere to be, so instead of catching a bus, I decided to jog there. I ran for 3 miles, and then played 5-a-side football for an hour.

I expected to be completely exhausted, but I felt better than I have in weeks. It means that I’m going to be doing that every week now, and I’ll set some times to go running throughout the rest of the week. I am a little stiff and my legs are a little sore today, but I really expected to be feeling worse than I am.

My boss and I are off down to London today, to work over the weekend, and don’t return until Monday evening. /*sarcasm mode on*/ It’s a prospect that fills me with profound joy /*sarcasm mode off*/

The one good thing about the trip this time, is that we’re not getting the insanely early train at 5.50am, but instead are getting the moderately early 7am train instead. It means we won’t get to the office until around midday, and also meant I didn’t need to get up before 5am.

Annoyingly, the seats we had booked had a problem with the power adapters, forcing us to move, in order to use our laptops for more than an hour. Thankfully, we found another unoccupied table pretty quickly, where the power actually worked.

Now all I need to make my morning run a little smoother, is the guy with the coffee. I need to kick start my daily caffeine intake as soon as possible.

***Update***

No sooner had I posted this, when the guy turned up with coffee. Excellent timing sir!

Technorati Tags: Travel

Well that sucked. I lost a big hand, and it crippled me. It left me short stacked, and I ended up all in with AJo against pocket 10s and K9s.

I never caught and I’m out, and plenty annoyed.

Oh well

Technorati Tags: Poker, PokerStars, Sunday Millions

Well I’ve made it to the first break in the tournament, which is the first thing on my list of goals for tonight. It has been an uneventful first hour, with me winning a few hands, and losing a few.

I’m down to just under 8k in chips, from the starting stack of 10k. We had 6821 entrants into the tournament, and first place pays just over $192K, which would be nice.

The top 1000 places pay, and my main aim tonight is to cash. That is my main goal, but I have a few other smaller goals to make first.

The next goal is to make the second break, and to have a stack over the average.

Well here we go, the 2nd hour is just about to begin.

Technorati Tags: Poker, PokerStars, Sunday Millions

I managed to qualify for this evenings Sunday Millions on PokerStars. It was a difficult task, and for a little while I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to manage it. Thankfully, I out lasted over 300 people, and managed to get one of the tournament tickets available in the satellite I was playing.

The tournament kicks off in a little over an hour an a half, so until then I’m going to relax, and do a spot of reading. I’m been playing a lot of poker over the last few days, and I’m hoping that it has warmed me up for tonight. Last weeks winner walked away with just under $200,000 which is unbelievable.

Here’s hoping I can go deep and cash in the tournament tonight. I’ll let you know how I got on tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Poker, PokerStars, Sunday Millions

As of now, I’m off work for the next five days.

Initially the days off, were intended to go to, and recover from T in the Park. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get tickets. So instead, I’m going to use those days to relax, play cards, and get some writing projects I have, out of the way.

One thing I’ve been contemplating recently, was getting myself up to SilverStar VIP Status on PokerStars. I’ve never really played with enough frequency to get there before, but it’s something I’ve meant to do for a while.

I’ve also been thinking about live blogging the weekends poker-a-thon, and anything else I get up to in the next five days… hmm, we’ll see!

I’m supposed to be hanging out with my friend Matthew on Sunday too, which should be cool. Lunch and beer, followed by some guitar playing, and hopefully some footy on TV, means it should be a chilled out day.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to start enjoying myself.

Technorati Tags: Poker, PokerStars

It’s raining a-god-damned-gain. Summer in Scotland was never a long period, but this year it’s been a complete joke.

I can remember maybe three days of sunshine without it raining in the last few months. That may be a little bit of an exaggeration but certainly not by much.

I love this country, and the city of Edinburgh, but the rain never seems to end it really makes we wish I’d moved to Australia. It still rains there, but it’s not every fucking day.

grumble, grumble.

Don’t mind me. I’ll be in a better mood later.