Blogging the River

Hello and Welcome to the RaisetheRiver blog!!
To start us off, here is an interview with the team - T is Brainchylde, B is BurnleyMik and C is The Cloud.

1) How long have you been playing poker?
T : I first played online about 3.5 years ago. I’ve had a clue about it for a year and a half or so - when I first played I never knew anything about odds and barely knew the hand rankings. I just enjoyed getting it all in! Uber fish.
B : Well I played my first game of NLHE back in 2003 and was instantly hooked! Since that point although I play virtually everyday I still have a lot to learn!
C : Around three to four years, which most of the time was spent playing sit and go’s, but I have relatively recently graduated to cash poker.

2) Your best moment in poker - live or online?
T : First Royal Flush. Happened quite recently (earlier this year) when I made the ultimate nuts against another players full house. Beautiful.
B : My best poker moment so far was winning an online satellite worth $4800 to play in the Scottish Poker Championships earlier this year. Unfortunately I got eaten alive at the actual tournament, but it was an excellent experience!
C : My best moment was the only time I ever played in a “big sunday night” event a couple of years back on Party Poker. The buy-in was $215, but I qualifies via a satellite and finished 60th for my biggest ever win of just over $900.

3) Your favourite site - and why?
T : To chat and mingle with fellow poker magicians? Raise The River. Everyone is very close here and the quality of conversation is always excellent. To play on? I really like Stars because you can always find a good game. I also like the Crypto network because of the Head Hunter games - you can be +ROI before you even get in the money!
B : Internet site has to be RaiseTheRiver because I love chatting about the game and trying to broaden my knowledge. As for a site to play on I think it has to be PokerStars. PokerStars have, in my opinion, the best online tournaments and considering this is my favourite form of poker, that’s where you will find me playing most days.
C : Pokerstars has to be my favourite, as you can get a game of anything any time you want, and the set up is tremendous - very professional. But recently I have been grinding at Party and Full Tilt, and doing OK, so maybe I might change my mind ;O)

4) What is your dream in poker?
T : To play one big buy-in televised tournament. Just one. That’s all I ask. I don’t really want to be a professional. I know I don’t have the strength of mind to do it. The beats are horrendous sometimes.
B : My dream is to make it to Las Vegas and play in the WSOP…..*drifts away with his own thoughts*
C : A WSOP bracelet would be lovely, but I would love to one day go full time.

5) Your favourite starting cards (if you want to divulge them!!)?
T : I like 8/6 suited. Always seemed to get me paid. I hate playing QJ and J10 though. I never seem to know where I am so play quite passively with these hands.
B : I hate them all evenly, they all lose!!! On a more serious note I love playing the Hammer (72 offsuit) and taking someone off a hand, especially when I show it afterwards!
C : King King. I won my first MTT with them, and they look mean!

6) A one line word of advice to someone starting out in poker?
T : Study the game and don’t ever think you’re going to master it.
B : Make sure you learn what ‘rakeback’ is because after you have signed up to a poker-site you cannot get it retrospectively.
C : Learn Bankroll management!!

7) Who would play you in a movie?
T : Who would play me? No idea. Who would I like to play me? George Clooney. He just oozes class imo.
B : Put a goatee beard on Ross Kemp!
C : Brad Pitt, no Richard Gere, maybe Tom Cruise…..no I’ll stick with Brad Pitt.

8 ) You’re stuck on a desert island. Who would be your three companions of choice??
T : My girlfriend (obviously), any successful politician (to converse and debate politics with - I love that stuff for some reason) and Eli Elezra (to play poker with - and I pick him not Ivey or someone because he seems to have the ability to chat and have a laugh at the table!)
B : I have to say the wife firstly. Peter Kay to keep me laughing and a good chef, possibly Jamie Oliver because that guy can rustle up a three course meal in ten minutes flat!
C : Well for entertainment purposes I’d have to take Ricky Gervais, for a game of poker I’d take Phil Helmuth (it’d be great to see what Ricky Gervais makes of him) and Kylie. (That’s if I can’t take the wife and two kids, of course…)

9) The worst record you ever bought?
T : Meh. Cloud is so old asking me these questions - a record?? VINYL? HA! We have these wonderful things called CD’s now, cloud ;o).. anyway.. worst one I bought….. Chef - Chocolate Salty Balls. LOL!
B : Is that the same as a CD? Haha, whoever wrote these questions is much older than me!! Ok it was that song by Kamikaze, ‘Here Comes The Hotstepper’ I thought it was really cool at the time….lol
C : Alright guys, less of the old jokes - they are called records. And you play them on gramophone players don’t you?? I bought “The Chicken Song” by Spitting Image…still not sure if it’s the worst though, as I also bought “Too shy” by Kajagoogoo - you know “Too shy shy, hush hush Eye to Eye"