Poker Blog of a Uni Student

time for work?

2009-04-01T10:47:00.005Z

I've been slacking a lot recently. I was in super grind mode before I went to asia, and haven't really felt it since then. Thus I shall be in work mode this whole month.
I'm gonna start with tournaments, since I've really started to like them, and WSOP is coming too. The SCOOPS on pokerstars are this week, and I fully intend to do well. I haven't done well in any online festivals, and I'm putting it down to a lack of focus. I'm being too 'whatever' about them, and not taking the care I should. I'm probably gonna play some live poker too. PKR Live 2 is next month, so is GUKPT Manchester. Plus with the WSOP coming, it might be worth playing some live cash at the Vic. I've never really bothered to play much live cash, but I'm feeling it more. At worst its something to do if I don't wanna play online, but still wanna be productive.

Last weekend was the GUKPT London. Think I might just start sitting out the first 40mins. I probably made 2 pretty clear mistakes, and if I'm being critical probably 3. Sounds kinda worse that it is, a lot of run bad early losing almost all my chips KK vs JJ all in preflop. Somehow I ran like fire to go 12k -> 2k ->22k; but I play a hand bad, lose a coin flip and then I lose a 3-way pot to get back to 20k... in probably as good shape as I could hope for - flush draw vs a set vs 1 pair on the flop. Semi slowrolled because turn and river go check/check and flush is no good.

Anyway, I aim to be posting every other day for the near future because I just keep winning :D

swongs

2009-03-18T05:54:00.002Z

Since my last post, I've been to Malaysia to see the family, and playing GUKPT Walsall. Kind of a strange bustout hand, where I probably should just pay more attention, and making sure others are too :(. I probably didn't play that tournament very well, but still had a reasonable stack without too much struggle.

Online donkaments have been 'meh', but so close. I came 4th in the party major the other Sunday, and just ran super bad in basically cooler spots. The other day I came 3th in the Sunday version of the 40k guaranteed on fulltilt. I also won the Saturday Big Shot on PKR 2nd time it ran :)

I'm about to go to sleep, having been awake a whole 36hrs now. looking forward to the sleep. Woke up at around 6-6.30pm, went for dinner and then headed over to the vic. was super bored for ages, since no tables broke. Finally a new one started, and I get a set in the first hand i play and lose, getting TT in on AKTsss in super zzzz spot. Lose a bunch online, then win back etc etc.

This week I might play some prelims at GUKPT London. They might even be full already. Definitely playing the main event, always a lot of fun.

manila

2009-02-02T16:03:00.005Z

A lot of the times when I post, it's been after winning a bunch and then I'll post everyday. Recently I haven't been winning, actually rocking my new biggest total downswing ever. Don't think I've been playing terribly, sure there's been some spots that have been just plain awful, but it happens. A lot of the time I've just not been winning all ins, which apparently is helpful.

Since my last post, I got on a plane and went to Manila. Having absolutely no information on the place, I definitely had no idea what to expect. The extent to which I knew nothing about the place, was needing a very very quick google in amsterdam airport in between my transit flight. At first I was all 'hey whats the exchange rate?', then I realised I couldn't have even guessed what the currency is.

I played the Sunday session before catching an 8.40am flight on monday, thus getting no sleep. Didn't do too bad sleepwise on the plane, only because I couldn't actually stay awake if I tried. Arriving in Manila, I had to do some super quick math in order to determine how much to withdraw from the atm machine. Asking a local what 10k pesos could buy was probably a little weird and possibly insensitive. I was trying to guage PPP obviously, but I don't think he really understood. Getting a cab from the airport to the hotel I was fully expecting to pay 1900 pesos, but pleasantly i super misread the meter as he only asked for 190. Yeah that sounds more like it.

I enjoyed Manila. Spent a lot of time with the guys from pkr. First perosn I met up with was Kingkai, for food in the buffet place where I'd end up eating a lot. I hung out a bunch with PKR_JABBA from... PKR and soosick, plus all the other pkr satellite winners. The night before the main event we went for dinner, and then drinks after. Somehow between dinner and 3am I because increasingly meh about everything, and at 4am managed to puke my whole dinner up. Ok I thought, I haven't drunk that much I'm ok, calm down puking makes you feel better. Tomorrow is a big day. Nope I woke again at 6am and puked all the rest and all the water I'd drunk, feeling terrible and unable to get to sleep I baiscally just closed my eyes and prayed to not puke any more. At 11am I puked some good old bile, before going downstairs and playing the main event at midday. fml.

I started super super good in a kinda rediculous hand. To some extent I feel I'm lucky to have won, but at the same time wtf does he have. Old dude limps CO, I make it 225 from sb with AKo, he calls. KQxss. I bet 325 he clearly is about to fold then decides to call. I''m like wtf. ok turn As. I'm not super super excited but I have technically gone from 1 pair to 2 pair. I bet 500 just for the kicks and he makes it 1500. WTF DUDE HOW COULD YOU HAVE BEEN ABOUT TO MUCK NOW YOUR RAISING ofsdnsjdnfglsn. ok i call. River blanks I check relatively quickly and call his 2.5k bet. He flips A9hh and I lol. Clearly I cant really be excited vs heat often early in a tournament for like 45% of my chips, but at the same time I don't think he can seriously be leveling me this hard on the flop with his fake fold. I don't think he does it with either JT or any FD so it def didn't make sense. I'm pretty sure on flop he just didn't wanna fold even tho no history and no image, and then on turn he hits the A ball and is just in fire fire mode, because he... has an A too in his hand and hey thats pretty strong no??
I spend the next 9 hrs basically trying not to puke before I busted with 30mins to go. I got to 30k at 300/600/75 but then won no pots for 3hrs and just couldn't run good enough.2 hands I was meh about.

Pokey then reminds me that I'm in a different timezone and I scramble to change my flight to sunday, tog et to malaysia in time to play sunday tournaments at 2am. I bubbled two ft's in a fashion that I'm not totally excited about and end the session -$500 after losing a day in manila and paying fees to change flights etc etc.

I'm probably about to take an enforced break form the internet, which may be a good thing. I really hope to get what I need done here, not get malaria, not go insane from mosquitos, not die of boredom and not get lifetilted by the one dimensional thought processes I'm about to encounter. For the next two weeks I get to live like a normal kid from a small town in a developing country (albeit without having to work). I must be doing something wrong.

chinese new year is going down right now, its the year of teh ox which really means nothing, but its a little coincidence because I was born in the year of the ox

playing bad/running/bad probably both

2009-01-19T05:06:00.007Z

I've been back from PCA a few days now. It was a lot of fun. I went out on the 3rd so that I could play Sundays. First one I was 1/7 in the ipoker major, but flamed out in 7th for a very disappointing 7.5k after QQ < AQ then A2 < QT and A7 < 77. super super fustrating. I expertly lose a small cc roulette then walking to rubens room i lose a 1k flip with kingdan who was stuck from the pit. Then lose a rando $200 on the end via rubber dice.
Never mind I thought, still up for the day and the main event is the next day! Get one of the toughest starting tables possible, helped not by the fact that all the action players were behind me and all the sng players to my right. Oh yeah and no one busted till 200/400/50 which is just rediculous since we just kept getting shorter and shorter (not to mention any new player brought in had to be worse than what was already sitting). I end up donking out in a spot I should probably always avoid, especially in live donkaments.
So i brick that, plus all the psotlims. 2k I managed to get AQ in pre vs aa and kk for 40bbs, then in the 5k lost a huge flip, in a pretty standard spot. Kinda annoying just because I was feeling good to play that day, but you just have to win the flips.
Then I have one of the worst sundays ever, not sure what i cashed in, if anything at all. Totally terrible. 7 days later I just had an even worse one. -7k for today cashing in a total of one tournament for $250. ghuiopshng sklhiopiopiopiophn.

Friday was gukpt brighton, and of course I busted before the first break. Pretty ****ing expert. I really don't think I've been playing very well recently, might have to take a break or something. I do think the lack of bananas has hurt me recently, since I like to use them early in sessions to basically make sure I fold.
(my other leak is i should just assume people always have it in live donkaments).

I plan to play a little on pkr, or play a few donkament sessions where I record my play just to check that I'm not thinking about things incorrectly. For the most part its been ok but I've felt like I've shoved in some perhaps bad spots, although there's been quite a few recently where I just keep getting shown AQ+ which is obv just running super bad, including seeing AA a lot :(
Somehow I reckon I'm only -£500ish since friday and actually up since being back from pca, because although I've played bad I can sometimes also play pretty good. However I ran kinda bad in the 90k gtd when I squeeze TT 35bbs deep and have someone flat what either has to be nuts or super retardedly wide and then lose the other 20bbs vs cl AA with AJ after he'd just raise/called 72s vs ~13bbs and rocking like 49/45. I did though win a 10k gtd ongame 109fo that day, as well as party 3pm day or so before. In both I was just in cruise control, so probably meant I ran pretty good.

Lastly congrats Richard 'zidane18' Lewindon who came 7th in Brighton. Sick unknown because he learns games rediculously fast. If he plays more of these, he's gonna have a bunches of chances to win and definitely one to watch when he gets chips.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T19:37:00.002Z

2009 huh? Last year pretty much flew by. I'd post an end of year graph if I had one, or do some kind of estimate of +/- but I honestly have no idea. This is probably one of my worst traits. I think I play the game well for the most part, but I'm just terrible at getting round to menial tasks. I used to keep track of my wins/losses pretty accurately on here for a while, but I just lost interest.

For December, I'm up ~$90k give or take 5-10k. I probably should know this stuff. My aim for the next year is to be better at tracking stuff.

Tomorrow I fly to PCA, strategically planning to arrive on the 3rd, and leaving on the 12th (so that I get the joy of palying Sundays on my laptop). Would like to say I'm looking forward to it, but I feel indifferent either way. My goal is to just try and do what I can in the tournaments, and not lose credit card roulette when the big bills come.

In the last post, I was obviously complaining about running bad. Well I managed to close out the party 18k gtd in the end, basically luckboxing the crapshoot period that is the close of virtually every party donkament. I was convinced to play yesterdays nightlies by a lewi because of the huge overlays. I won a small 9k gtd on ongame (my 1/day cash), which lewi also ft'd but then my play went to complete shit. Rocked my D- game pretty damn hard, and deserved not to cash anything. Actually that's not true I did get a little unlucky in some spots, but I just didn't think I was in touch with any table flow. It's been a while since I've been so annoyed at my own play. It's gonna happen every now and then just out of pure variance, but playing bad really annoys me because it means I've left money on the table.

anyway gl for 2009, see you after pca

AARRRGGGGGGHHHHHH

2008-12-29T05:24:00.004Z

fustrating weekend.

Felt like I played pretty good overall, but ran bad in ugly spots. Saturday started off indifferently, but got better when I finially binked a pca seat in a 100r. However no other joy, liek rejamming QJo in pkr major, when I thought villain would always fold because it was 5 from the money bubble, however the sb gets to have QQ which I think is ok because i doubt he ever calls AQ so his range is baiscally AK/QQ+ and I'd probably want to discount the number of times he calls AK to some region of 20-80% of the time leaning on something most liekly being like 30-45%. otehr guy typed in chat later that he had 77, so I defintiely feel it was fine.

Today started off awesome, missed the first 15mins of the warmuop and party major, not a problem. first hand back at 50/100 I 3-bet a Co open, bet/3-bet/call a Jxx lose to JT river T. MAybe a sigh of things to come. Run bad in pretty much everything, but I'm pretty sure that the large majority of the chips I lsot were all getting it in good, or some super cooler.

My best shots of the day ended up being the sunday million and mulligan, but it was never gonna be. with a rediculous image I 3-bet KK 50bbs deep, get cold 4-bet shoved on and lose to AA obv with around 100 let in the mulligan.
In the million i ran like god early to be 2/400 or so, but just couldnt get going and at one stage held my stack for about 2.5hrs before shoving atc into ak for 12bbs to bust 120-50ish. about b/e for the week and ive almost defintiely closed tlb top 100.

Today is tuesday, and as I write this I have a total of one left, party 18k gtd. Felt like I played another good day, closest stuff was busting the ftp 50k gtd with 40 left JJ < KK for like 75bb+ pot. Then in crypto £9k gtd, I lose JJ vs 88 ai pre for CL going into FT, but alas I FT bubble cos thats how good I am.

not sure what I'm gonna do tomorrow, but plan to play live cash on 1st and then fly to bahamas 2nd Jan.

its the weekend!

2008-12-27T17:56:00.002Z

and its gonna mean a tonne of mtts. Sunday is the last sunday of the year, and theres a few specials on.
goals are:

1, up 20k+
2, pca seat on top
3, top 100 for tlb

more would be nice, but i'm gonna preemtive call the above and probably quit the year unless tlb isnt a lock (and/or going for 1st)

today's best tourneys are the 10 seat pca sat, and pkr xmas special. Can't be bothered to register before 8pm gmt, and probably will only register for a very short period, maybe 2-3 hrs.

ive been mixing around with the sunday scehdules and I've decided it can just sometimes be high variance, but this is the planned schedule:

12.45
warmup
party major

13.00
stars 100

13.18
pca sat $33r 3xturbo

14.00
brawl
ipoker 320
boss media 150euro
stars 100r?

15.00
pacific major
ongame 100 +1r??
ftp 163?
crypto £110
cake 100fo?

15.18
PCA 109r sat

15.55
party apt maillia sat

16.30
sun mill

17.00
$320 cake

17.30
ub 215 ?

18.00
ftp 750k
PCA 650

18.18
pca sat $33r 3xturbo

18.30
sunday 2nd chance

19.00
stars 109fo

19.05
ftp muilligan

no idea what i'm gonna win, but i'd better jsut for my own sanity. right now would be really clutch to bink a sunday major.

merry christmas

2008-12-26T05:06:00.002Z

I've been playing decent volume this month. No big scores since the last post, in fact i finally had a losing sunday, something I'vve not been used to. I'm probably about even in 180 man sngs now since I have a total of 1 win in a 20/180. 300 tlbs is more than I thought it would be, and I plan to either play some tomorrow/saturday or 29th-31st along with normal schedule..

I'm not sure why I've stayed away from the ftp 6pm 40k gtd turbo, I've always thought I sucked at them but I final tabled them two mondays running. last monday I came 3rd, then 2nd yesterday after getting kinda unlucky. Made one iffy shove 3 handed because I thought villain would fold wider based on stack sizes/icm etc, but he called anyway to pick me off then win aj my AQ pre for some unknown reason.

I've played a bunch over xmas eve and day, and have 6 fts with zero wins. One PCA 33r 3x turbo satellite I had a legit shot to win, but I suck really bad and got JTs into JJ via a bad shove. Up like 8kish over the 2 days, but it should have really been more (add the losing sunday and I'm not totally happy).
3 of my ft's were on ongame, nice to do well on that network for a change. A couple of ft's were on party (note no ft's ons tars even though i'm chasing tlb, good job me). The party tournament structure is possibly the most fustrating thing in the world. Endgame is always the most redic crapshoot ever, plus I run crazy bad.

I'm happy with my overall game right now, just don't think my head is always in the right frame when playing. I think bananas may have cost me a little but probably not too much.

I was planning to take tomorrow off before the weekend, and I may still do; but the mansion 1k 6-max is on and I seem to just crush souls in 6-max events. It's also on saturday but I think all the qualifiers play tomorrow so friday is way way better than saturday.

I've been experimenting with scehdules and am actually a fan of short registering periods. tomorrow I'll probably register 1pm-3pm and then add stuff later as I start to bust things (stuff like turbos and/or 180 sngs).

saturday is gonna be a decent day, I'll probably rock 3pm-5pm with pca sat and pkr major going on.

sunday I plan to do the whole day as per usual before finally taking a day off on monday or tuesday.

Another Sunday

2008-12-15T07:02:00.003Z

After my last post I continued to fail in every 180 SnG I could register for. To cap off a bad couple of days, I busted a stars 50k gtd 10th when someone decided to rejam 82s in my face for either 2nd/3rd entering FT.

Today I started off running like fire, and I'm beginning to consider not firing up every tournament under the sun. Lowest buyins today were two $100 freezeout tournaments and obviously the obligitory $33 rebuy 3x turbo satellites to PCA. I think I fired one $$55 tournament up and immediately regretted it. Played a couple of satellites on party, but no dice in either, as I bust the Irish Poker Open sat in 10th with 5 seats, when I lose AK < AQ AI pre for CL and easy coast in.

I ended up bricking everything and/or playing bad, but did eventually cash the 1mill euro guaranteed on boss media for 3.5k. I also came 2nd in the FTP $50k gtd for 21.k Bit disappointing to not bink the 34k, but as I was super card dead the whole final table and was 2-1 down going into HU. A little sad that 30mins earlier he'd won A8 vs my AQ which would have given me a clear lead with maybe 5-6 left. Man this is starting to sound like a bitch post with all these bad beats. Whatever, I'm happy they weren't me playing bad (those times, I also made some terrible decisions today).

Hopefully I'm just saving my 'one time' for live tournaments. I did enjoy the boss media tournament, and I'm assuming there'll be a bunch more promotional tournaments on all the sites, with it being the holiday season.

November Recap

2008-12-11T05:25:00.004Z

Since the GUKPT Thanet win I played a few live tournaments. All of them went really bad. Busted Amsterdam Masters early after feeling pretty strong on the table, and then again in PKR Live when I never really got started and just lost a flip directly before dinner break.
After that I played the GUKPT main event, and busted just after the break in a complete disaster zone. Lost a pretty big pot immediately after break when i defend vs minraise and lose 2pair vs 2pair, then squeeze spot in what I felt was a pretty good spot where I felt praz bansi has to fold most of his opening range but obv lose to aces, pffff had an A blocker too.
Just about a week ago I played the champions of champions event and didn't get anywhere. Bust in another great squeeze spot where the preflop raiser was always folding but I don't win flips live.

Online I've been running the complete opposite, doing well in a variety of tournaments. Since the end of November I've run like fire and am currently trying to do well for monthly tlb. Stars have a new passport promotion, where the top 100 freeroll to try and win seats into 10ks. I won the 3r and a sunday stars 100fo, plus a 2nd in the 100r. I now have just under 4k stars tlb points this month, however I can not win a 12-36/180 to save my life. I must be like 3 for 30 in actually cashing, let alone actually winning. I'm assuming just one more big field tournament is necesary. In fact if the boomswitch is kept on I might have a good shot at weekly tlb this week too.

I've probably been palying either my A- game or C- game for a while now. Thankfully its been the A- game more often than not, but its hard to tell since I've obviously run redic hot. Last two days I've run super bad, losing every flip, getting super coolered etc etc, which probably isn't that suprising since I have to regress to the mean eventually. At any given period I guess I can run terrible/amzing and there's just no awy of controlling it. It does annoy me a little when I question a shove/call/whatever when villain just happened to have exactly the nuts, whilst 90%+ of the time they would have folded.

2009 stars with PCA, which I still need to win a seat to. I've been donating like crazy but hoping to change that. Last Sunday I won a satellite to APT Manila in late January, and theres a new GUKPT season. I'm planning to play a lot online, as well as a lot live. Not just the EPTs but but more UK tournaments.

below is a promo for the stars blogger tournament coming up. a few seats into live events are up for grabs, and I'm always such a sucker for them.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This PokerStars tournament is a No Limit Texas Hold’em event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 807606

WOOT WOOOOOT

2008-10-20T18:29:00.009Z

So I shipped GUKPT Thanet. HU with jamie brown (jambon), I was down approx 1.8mill to 400k. I'd thayer super systemed it up (this means, get to 2nd, then win tournament), all final table and was happy to win the title. Although i was 4.5-1 I felt ok because I was still 20bbs deep, not super short or anything.

I'd been restricted to being that short simply because of table dynamics, position and some serious card deadness. I went through the whole tournament getting AA once, and at the FT best actual hands before HU i had were AK which chopped with AK, JJ once which ran into AA (and i won obv) and 99 which i folded when there was a utg open and a 3-bet in front of me, and I was like 99% sure the 3-bettor had JJ+, which was sad.

Day 1

I'd started day 1b and was just chillin for a bit. Then I won a pretty decent pot just before the first break, when I overlimped btn with QTo in like a 7-way pot or whatever. Board came QT4, and an older lady (utg limper) bet close to pot, folded to me I made it 1.5k she calls, after everyone else had folded. Turn Q, check, I bet, she shoves and hold vs AQ obv.
That got me to 20k, then I dropped all the way down to 10k again getting 'run over', or just running super bad. meh. That particular table was tougher than most, with karl mahrenholz and praz bansi on the table, and my table position not being too great. Not to mention some dude behind me, who'd decided he wouldn't fold vs me whilst I simultaneously decided to not flop a pair for 2hrs.
Somewhere amongst this, I lost KTs to K9o after opening utg and the big blind decides that shoving 11bbs had enough FE against me, sigh. I chip up a little bit playing really straight forward, before some superstar decides to stop and go me from bb with a 4.4k stack prehand at 300/600, with 78o. He wins vs AJ on 665 when I obviously snap call. Sigh.
I eventually got moved to a new table and go to work immediately. I go from 16k to 50k with only 2 showdowns, both times vs 10bbs stacks. One was AQ >AJ when i called an open ship in a marginal spot, then another was raise/calling 87s to bb shove and winning vs TT, because why wouldnt I.
Then praz comes to my table again and gets the jesus position again, since everyone behind him was free chips and all the good and/or aggro players were to his right. I had will martin whos pretty solid directly behind and james browning who was gunning for me a little bit before I 4-bet shipped on him, and he folded what he claimed was a good pair.
With like 30mins to go I get moved to a new table with 45k, and immediately people react by saying 'finally theres some chips on the table'. This generally feels like a level to me, in that they're trying to induce me to play a little wild, but tbh given stack sizes and position I was definitely up for some of that. I'd just come from a table where 3 of us had a bunch and there were a few shorties so i was chillin.
First hand I sit some dude open ships 14bets before declaring 'this could be it for the bookie', which I took to mean he was 'the bookie', of whom I'd heard so much about. Praz had been describing a guy who'd randomly decided folding KK for 28k effective at start of the hand vs him was a good idea, before being shown QQ. Ship the free info. Very next hand I open 2.7k at 500/1k/500 with A4s and he calls in the big blind. Flop J23r one spade. I decide to cehck behind. Turn is an Ao, he bets 4k, and I call. River is a blank 6o and he shoves 8.5k. I call relatively fast and he tables T8o because this seemed like a better spot than getting kings all in preflop??? I get to 60k but mess up by raising 2 of last 3 hands, and getting it shipped in my face twice by 23k stack and then liv boevee with about an 18k stack and I sigh. I'm sure the first one was semi light, and then I tufat theorem it and liv wakes up with a reasonably strong hand. End on 55k, which I was ok with but was later a little sad because to end day 1b I'm 2nd to someone with 56k. Could have been first which would be chillin. Jack ends on like 40k cos hes a fish and just giving chips away for free when he could easily have ended over 50k.

Day2

I start pretty tidily when the small blind shoves 10bets into my big blind and I snap call in his face with KJo, and win vs J8o. I then basically start running shit and raise a lot. Then jack comes over and tells me hes busted in a retarded way, way to stack punt bro. I later hear he had T5o and went to town vs a set. oops
I soon raise/call a 24bb shove from the bb, having raised ATo from button and get there vs JJ. Might have been a bad call in hindsight, but meh. Apparently I'm so good at winning showdowns, that it doesnt really matter what I do, jsut get it in. It was redic how many hands I was opening, and I'm so wide there that he should be shipping in my face a lot wider than JJ. oops. I get to 120k without showdown.
Not long after, I 3-bet will martin to my right with an active 3-bet image to 15k which was bad sizing at that point, but not by much, james browning cold 4-bet ships 37k and I really consider folding 88 getting like 2.8-1 or so. Against most people, I just say whatever infinity to 1 lets roll, but maybe I should have folded. He obv wins with AA. Then like 3 hands later 2 limpers, he 4x, short ships like 12bets, I fold 99 in the bb and the 2nd limper overships for like 45k. browning has AA again obviously. So he goes from 37k to 150k in 5 hands, because why wouldnt he.
He then opens the very next hand, and I lol really hard cos I'm never letting him through, and 3-bet 5k to 15k although I mess up slight because I'm oop and he's gonna feel priced in/has big stack so obv will call, even though he really shouldn't. Flop is like 875 or something. check check and I bet sn Ace turn and win with KQ. Then almost immediately martin opens again to 5k, I 3-bet to 13.5k, just to keep it small in case someone 4-bet ships (:D) and I'm obviously doing this for value with TT and expecting him to never call. Obviously he does call, with 18k behind and we check to river on AJxxK. He shoves I fold and he shows JJ. heh ty for saving me some money?
I get moved again and first hand I ship in the face of the guy who came 4th with 22 for like 30bets cos i'm a little tilted. He folds 99 face up, I make a bad show I guess, and nick persuad says that he was tipping me to win at the start of the day, but was now changing his mind. no faith imo.
That table broke fast which was good, since it was tough and my position wasn't optimal. I immediately join a table with praz (again), jamie brown whos jambon, james browning and karl. Immediately the most monstrous pot for a long time goes down where jambon opens utg, karl flats, praz flats bb. Q33. i wasnt sure exact sizing as I was in daisy land at that point, but action went lead by praz, jamie calls, karl folds. Turn 5 praz bets, jamie calls. River prazi moves like 95% of remaining stack or more or something and jamie snap shoves river A, and 55 >A3 to knock praz out. I like praz, but mainly because hes a good player I was pretty happy to see him knocked out and now I have decent seating draw with all the above named to my right, and dead money to my left. I space out a bit and will martin eventually comes to my direct left. Jambon has like 350k or soemthing huge and I have 80k at dinner break. I also have 10% of james keys at this point who has 140k and is in 2nd. I forget what blinds are exactly, but it was a huge stack getting close to money.
Immediately after break, I see keys win a pot, then hes out. Apparently he got TT <88 and got v unlucky in some other spots.
jambon gets kk>AA of jamie browning, again why wouldnt he again and I'm still SS ninja skilling it. I shove UTG with no sb directly after this hand. I think its actually a bad shove with 77 and lose to QQ but luckily he's the one guy on the table who doesn't currently cover me.
I'm short and shove ATo on Jambons utg open, but hes so wide and Id got just back to 90k ish at 4/8k, after he opened to 20k so i felt i had pretty solid FE, since he was so wide. He folded KJo. ship ship. I then shove K9o in CO for like 13 bets and win vs martin's JJ. Immediately I give it back when I open 22k utg and he shoves like 115k total. obv i have to call, and lose to his AK. sigh. Thankfully I then win KQo vs the big blind's 55, and manage to end day 2 with 178k at 4k/8k/400 to FT coming in 6/9.

updates

2008-08-13T20:34:00.003Z

Well, I went to turning stone for a small series, played two prelims and busted both early, whilst shaun did well and FTd both. I did end up Ft'ing the 2k main event, and got to the tv final table 2nd in chips, but didn't run great and busted 6th :(.

Then went to cancun with kingdan and had a great time. However I dropped like 3k on the trip not including expenses, and then -2k today at 2/4 HU. I feel a little tilted, since I ran super bad, but I also didnt really play very good either. I actually feel like I've run really bad recently a lot. Random stuff like AJ <<<<<< 89o for full stacks AI pre, the old AQ < AQ etc etc and I'm feeling a little tilted so had to stop.

May or may not grind ftops tonight ughhhhhhhhhhhh. well i guess not a long update, i guess my brain cant really function right now with tilt + hunger

Vegas vegas vegas

2008-07-15T06:44:00.003Z

Well, it's all over for me. I have 2 more days or so before I leave, and I wish I could say I've enjoyed every moment. That's not saying I haven't enjoyed it. Definitely not. However some things have sucked.

Busting the main event was the most disappointed I've felt in a while. I should really have gone much deeper, considering how well I held. The first time that I was all in since level 1 of day 1, I got AK into KK and even then flopped Axx. Obv 1 outer on the river (i got it in behind tho obv), and I close out wafflecrush in pretty std fashion.

I've lost my laptop, glasses, tolietries, camera, ipod and some other stuff too, since my backpack got left in a taxi during day 3, which was great.

Overall I actaully was in profit for the series, which is semi great. I wont explain why it is bad, but well it's not the best. Although a totally disppointing 126th, I feel like I gained a tonne of confidence. I obv am no teir 1 online player, but I'm def within teir 2 and feel like thats WAY more technical skill than is needed. Plus the fact that I believe that I'm playing 'live' poker so much better, I'm sure good scores are coming.

Currently supremely confident in my play, and am planning to grind out more live donkaments.

On thursday I go to albany NY and turning stones for the first time. There's gonna be a small 2k thats gonna be telivised so I expect to win that. Then I'm gonna go to cali for a week or so with shaun for something or other poker related. After that I head back home and rest for a while. I plan to play a lot online, but also mix in a fair amount of live play.

Definitely doing barcelona, wsope, and london ept, as well as some gukpts if they are at good times. I'm not sure about my actual situation in terms of who's taking my action, but I'm confident that that will get sorted out soon, and in time for barcelona and wsope.

After that I guess it may be more random epts, and then definitely aussie millions and the appt in aussie too at the end of the year. Will def miss pca. lapc is a possibility on the list, and def wanna do monte carlo ept again, as well as wsop next year.

That's my provisional plan. I had wanted to try going back to uni somewhere, but I kinda feel like not doing it. I really dont like having to work on someone elses schedule, and I feel like this is what I want to do right now. I feel like there's very little chance of me ever getting a real job. I see too many edges everywhere that I don't think I'll ever do it.

Since it's kinda the end of the poker season, I felt like it's time to reflect. 2 years ago I was grinding micro stakes NL, and casinowhoring at $1/hand. Now I'm playing 10ks all over the world and am extremely disappointed with a deepish run at the wsop main event.
This wasn't natural poker ability. I luckboxed into learning a game that I feel can be broken down very easily, yet others cant. And, at the same time, they are willing to put up lots of money against me because the variance within the game blinds them. Sometimes it blinds me too, but thats half the fun.

My mother always said that televison and the internet wouldnt pay my bills. I know she meant the best, but I feel like she was wrong. Getting a job is not the most profitable route. The only way it is, is because you do it to learn the skillsets you need to make money on your own. Even if you made £500k/year in a job, that still means that the value you give to a company is like £1mill-£2mill. That's a lot of edge to pass up and it's not what I do want to give up especially right now with poker being untaxed.
Also once in a job, people follow societies idea of what they should do. That cant be the most profitable, as society is made up of people who work for others. It's those that are willing to take chances, that have the most money/power/whatever they seek.

world series

2008-07-07T11:32:00.004Z

Srry for the lack of updats. We'll i went 1 for whatever i played, i think 10. just like a 3rd level min cash in the penultimate 1.5k nl. I kinda felt dumb after the very last 1.5k event, where I felt like I overran my image, in that i could have chipped up a lot without showdown if i hadnt gone for a total insane image. Saying that i got A6hh in vs KJo on 973hh and he hit his 4 outs etc for starting stacks first hand of level 2. If I'd won that, I'm pretty sure the table would have been run the hell over. Oh well.

Moved into the palms place and its pretty nice. I chilled for a couple of days, just doing the bananas. Went to the SSNL dinner, and got to play a dealers choice game with sklanksy for a little bit. Was fun. His game of choice was 5/10 stud hi/lo, no qualifier hi side takes 2/3rds of the pot. lol <3 david.

Anyway did 1c of wsop main event. ended with 90k cos im built like that. I ran super cold preflop, seeing AA x1 right at the end of the day when i could never get action, TT 2x, Ak 1x, KK/QQ/JJ/99/88 for a combined 0x. Obv I'm saving it for later, although I did crack KK with 77 in a way that was just lol.

Hands I can remember. Clownfish in hijack opens 350 at 50/100 with starting. i call button KJo, superclownfish bb 3-bets to 1k with 40k (which he'd got in the most retared manner vs an obv AA). So we both call. Flop KQQ. bet 1.4k, fold I raise to 4.4k. Kinda dubious obv, but man he could have anything and bleh. turn K. ding. he donks 6k. I call. river 2o. he checks, meh. I bet 6k he shvoes and puts me in for like 3k more. lol he has T9. pretty awesome
Some blonde chick comes to the table with like 23k. Researched later it was lacey jones, whom I still have no idea is famous for what but whateverr. She had these massive gold headphones which just made me laugh and she was talking to the table about going to spearment sometimes or something. whatever i was in the 8 seat and she was in the 1 seat, so I really didn't have any chance to chat. I managed to successfully not run into AA/KK/chase down AK from her, in the 2nd hand she played. young uk pro tony phillips limps UTG at 50/100, 2 clowfish limp, i rock the 7x with QTo and folds to her when she makes it 1.7k. Folds round and I wtf all over the place. ugh fold maybe? whatever i have the 40k stack, gamble gamble.
Flop Q78, i check call 2k, turn 7 check call 3k, river 8 checked through and my Q is good. Kinda wanna say she has JJ here a lot, but its also AK a lot. Whatever I faded the overpair which she could have had a lot obv.
I was at 50k at the end of level 1, on a relatively difficult table. However due to seat locations, I had an awesome seat. A dude who won gukpt london the year before was in the 2 seat, i think mike sextons son in the 4 seat and tony phillips in the 4 seat. that was really good for me as they had to battle, and i could pick up whatever i wanted from the guys around me. It got even better when the 5 seat got filled by a dude who I'm 100% didnt know the rules of poker 1month ago. He had no idea of adequate agression or relative hand strengths.
In one limped pot it checked to me on AQx and I bet 1k, into a 2kish pot, guy behind me raises to 3k and he snap calls. tehy showdown eventually and he has A3o. then he limps UTG, UTG+1 limps I iso the 43s at 150/300 to 1.8k and both call. Flop A77 he donks 1k, snapcall, I sigh and decide to fold. turn A. something happened, like a bet or something, but river was like 2o and it went bet/call with 10k behind for UTG+1. note utg called the raise, and then tables 77. lol utg+1 obv has AT and everyone lols.
Went into the dinner break a little pissed cos I had 48k, and meh. But my table was good, including someone who I can only describe as a weekend warrior. On my button it was laceys bb, and he was in sb in the 9 seat and would ALWAYS flat my button 3x. without fail. and then stare me down if he missed the board. was teh awesome. also because when he hit he wouldnt stare me down and would have happy feet. So basically I could play perfectly vs him, although he won the first 2 since it took me exactly hand 1 to figure it out, then the 2nd hand he obv had the nuts and he showed me AT after i check behind flop Axx and fold turn after waiting a little bit on him just so I had a better feel for him later.
After the break, bakes goes on a tear and I have to catch up. At 150/300/25, effective stacks are about 25k, the quad 7s dude limps UTG, I iso to 1.4k, kinda big but now i have 77 and i plan to full pot at least 2 streets vs him. would be nice to have him o myself. he calls. flop 876ddd. meh. check, i bet 2.5k he tries to raise but only throws out one 5k chip. dealer insta rules a call and i cant decide what to do. meh i just keep quiet. turn 8. woot. he bets 2.5k, i raise to 6.5k, he calls. river 7 he bets 6k ad i shove for whatever more. He called relatively fast and I beat KK. lol i felt it was kinda ironic. Then used my expert limping strat to win some chips, and lose chips with my expert raising strategy. bleh

got moved and on a new tabel had about 80k. directly behind me the dude had like 110k. meh. he 3-bet my first open kinda small, i folded. then i won a pot in a bvb 3-bet spot and stole a few blinds etc. just hung out a little whatever. I then got 3-bet again bvb with AJ. and c/f a 9xx. he flashes AA. sweet. kinda bleh cos it was always bvb a lot as we were the two biggest stacks and the most aggro. overall though he didn't try and get too nuts with me and I ended the day on 90k.

felling good, and checking the leaderboard, I'm bigger than i thought. 90k didn't feel like much when bakes has 160k, but i'm really high in the counts so I feel good.

0 for everything, obv

2008-06-26T09:16:00.002Z

disclaimer: there are no edits, screw that. i cant be bothered to structure sentences or paragraphs properly. u read it or u dont, whatever.

After like 8 events or whatever im 0 for everything. today was the 1k rebuy, and obv i don't get anywhere close after having over 30k at 150/300/25. so redic. lost a lot of chips with KK on QQx vs a young kid who I guess is basically a run hot merchant. He isn't terrible or anything, but basically getting KK in 4way then KK in 3 way and then playing a hand real real bad vs me = like 20k+ and no need to addon i guess. bleh

ended up busting with 19k at 300/600/25 vs mark seif who had a load of chips. basically he calls my preflop open, floats a J8xcc board with 55 and has me c/r AI the turn when its a 5 ball cos, like he's that good at poker.

in terms of the other events, i've had stacks ina few spots early but not run good in the later stages of the day 1 so no cashes. one of which i lost a 45k pot at 300/600/75 (in the 3k) when i get it in on 443 vs Q3 and lose, cos I got outskilled. At least it was pretty funny tbh.

On the day the 2.5k 6-max was on, i was out after like 40mins, and then went to the bellagio for the 1k. I ended up coming 6th for virtually no money. super annoying tho earlier.
both stacks over 30k, 300/600/50 I open button with KQo to 1.6k. sb calls, bb folds.

AKxccc, i have Qc. check check. turn blank, check i bet 2.5k. river Q. bet of like 2.45k i announce call flip my hand over and wait for the pot. fucking dealer is retarded and mucks my hand, i obv wasnt paying attention assuming the ther guy folded, but she pushes him the pot and mucks his hand without showing. i go nuts, the floor comes over, heated arguement and 2 people vouch for me yet the pot endeds up still being his. i do admit i should just call and see his hand first, protect my hand blah blah but fuck me how good must it be to be called by better then not show ure hand and get the pot. fucking bellagio is one of the gayest places to play. like a dealer calls me on not betting over the line etc. he tells me there was a very clear announcement etc at the start of the tournement. then the guy who tried to call says 'yah but he turned up over an hour late', so thus how could i hear it.

note: another retaded thing about the bellagio in the 2/5 i remember, they make up turn your hand over if u get AI before teh river. fucking stupid.

i'll post more when i can think of anything. at the palms right now and prob gonna stay here till the end, then head over to turning stone with shaun. i also fell asleep in the bathroom of our room in the bellagio 2 days ago for like 4 hrs. too many bananas imo

eagerly anticipating

2008-05-31T11:20:00.002Z

Well, a few things have changed for me atm. It may have taken 15 months, but I've finally tidied my room! Well almost. It's like 90%+ finished. I'm also thinking about new ways to use existing resources that I have, including currently using my laptop to write this post whilst watching tv on my computer :0.

lol anyway, today is the 500 pound (i have an american laptop) Gutshot something or other series tournament blah blah but ti starts at 6pm. It's currently 12pm and I'd woken at 10am after 8+hrs of sleep. How rediculous. The first time that I am back on a normal sleep schedule and it's basically the wort time ever to do so. Play is going to 3/4am i think, so I am actually planning to nap it out soon so that I wont fall asleep. I guess busting out early is the other viable alternative :(. with a 45min clock, I probably shouldnt last too long given my track record in all live poker donkaments, especially the ones in the UK.

I have a load of errands to run after this weekend. I'm so retarded that I should have started last week, but I was generally jsut asleep when I needed to be awake so I've had to put it off. I hope I can get everything done in time for the WSOP. I'm still waiting on another op that may happen, but I'm starting to get bored with the idea. Event #1 the 10k PLHE just kicked off and I'm suddenly feeling pangs of longing to be out there again. fwiw my homie vivek has this shit in the bag, and he's gonna take this donkament down in sweat pants, flip flops, and so I'm lead to believe, newly straightened hair.

This week, I haven't really played much. I've done well online in cash games, but next to no volume. I really need to get back onto all of that.

I guess the most important thing that happened to me this week was Lost. A show that is just amazing imo. Skip this little section if you're not 100% upto date. THIS is the link to the 2p2 OOT discussion about it. Yes I did read the whole thread this morning in like 2 hrs. Some of it is bv noise, but there's some good analysis and relevant links to other places like relevant youtube clips of alternate endings and a chronological order of the fast forwards of season 4 etc.

Personally I just assume Jin is still alive, but He didn't make it back to the island and I guess it's not unreasonable to just kill him off since a lot of people are gonna have randomly died, but he was still a rather large character in the show so I guess he' stlll going, plus there is a random scene i remember in like season 2 maybe when hurleys in the pantry and Jin talks. At the time I wrote it off as a halucination, but I guess it could have been Jin time travelling as he spoke perfect english.

In terms of Locke being in the coffin. I agree with the speculation that what's likely is that Locke is big in season 5, then becomes less prominent in season 6. It's also not impossible for Locke to cme back to life in the same way Jack's father seems to have, maybe not back to life exactly but he's done something.

We're waiting for 'annie' to become importnat again. This was the girl that was friends with Ben when he was a kid, and according to lostpedia she's gonna be huge although details are unclear.

Im considering watching all of lost form season 1 again, I might knock out season 1 now and then do the rest when I come back from the WSOP.

Ok i'm actually just gonna go get some food now, cos I'm hungry. I guess there's gonna be pdates on the gutshot website or something but I doubt they'll pay me any attention unless I go deep, as they have no idea who I am.

lose, win, lose, b/e etc

2008-05-26T09:17:00.002Z

Well last Sunday was bad. Then sometime midweek I decided to flip someone on 2p2 for his roll and lost. Must be pretty nice to have AA in a flip. Friday was teh usual fustration, and I think I played bad. Sometimes I find it tough to tell in tournaments, but I guess my total equity in the party 50k gtd and the ftp 40k gtd when I busted out of each was maybe 6-8k but I cash for just under 2k.

I was really kicking myself, but the next day I went to doctor_funs house to grind the saturdays. I've come to realise that Saturdays really aren't fantasitc without the big sats. The schedule is better than normal weekdays, but probably not by that much. Obv prizepools are bigger, but around now with summer comming and less people being indoors (or going to vegas) I don't think that I should commit as vehemently to Saturday donkament grinding as I have done.

As for the session itself, I started late and never got going. Ended up 1 tabling the stars 109fo, 25k gtd for, well, forever (maybe 3hrs). Thankfully I won tho. I've started to get better with 2 tables in, although actually something I don't quite do right is the 8 down to 6 people spot. From 5 down I always feel very comfortable. I won it for 9.8k which was nice.
I def think my HU has improved dramatically but I've also definitely run hot to be 6-2 over my lifetime donkament HU battles. well maybe. Last nights actually took a long time cos I'm retarded and I took about 30mins to adapt to him.

Sunday? well i cashed the 1mill turbo takedown!!! Then zero cashes till the good old 109fo 25k gtd which I bombed out of in 10th for a 500k+ pot to go 1.5x CL. f sundays as per usual.

I'm not sure exactly when I'm getting to Vegas just yet. I wanted to do the start of the festival, but atm I am waiting on an alternate opportunity. If that doesn't pan out, I'm on the first plane over and straight to work on a bracelet.

Sundays are soulcrushing

2008-05-12T00:15:00.003Z

Wow I'm on redic lifetilt. Things start pretty blah. Lose some chips, get them mostly back then mess up a ahnd real bad in the FTOPS HU first round and bust when I knew the game dynamic was not right. Thankfully win a load of bounties in the KO to untilt me.
Went Deep in the Warmup, only to have a retard big stack who was just terrible open shove AQs from UTG+2 (with like 80bbs and 30 something left) for like 40bbs effective. I cry a little inside and call TT and obv lose.
Went like close to deep in the Bodog major which I played for the first time. I'd put in like 500 hands of cash on the site to get used to it, but still completely for get about it from like 120-70 left when it started to slowdown a load. ADD ftl.

Luckboxed 2 tables in the early 100r but played a hand real slow only to cry on the river and get shown turned set to bust 8th for like 6k or something, but 1st was 65k so I'm currently lifetilting.

I dropped 1 stack at NL5k last night in a spot where my feel was right but I probaby should have gone for a safer line. I feel like I'm playing pretty well actually now, just running bad in real high variance spots. Oh well.

f sundays

2008-05-06T02:25:00.001Z

Ran so bad everywhere. casehd for liek 1.3k or soemthing but sigh.

oh but then today i FT'd a mansion and got 4th for 1.5k, loads of otehr random cashes and 12k for winning the early 50/50 on stars.

woot imo

variances

2008-05-04T05:42:00.002Z

Lots of that. So I ran bad/played bad/lost a little HU for like 2k directly after the last post. Then went over to the Manchester GUKPT.
Not much happened, I got some light 3-bets in making use of a pretty tight image, soul read someone then got KK into AA pre vs one of the few people I would really ever consider I might be bad. Oh well I just cant fold.

Didn't play much due to bananas and tidying my room. I'm like maybe 50% there so far, but it looks a lot better. Clearing my closet and random clothes I never wear I managed 4 full binliner bags. Gotta go drop them off at the charity shop asap.

Today started off kidna bad, busting everywhere in ok/good/marginal spots but mostly stuff i was ok with. Thought it was gonna be another blah day. Rupert came down from warwick to grind with me and we'd planned to go to the Gutshot for the £330. We missed the 1pms and 2pms (pokerstars time - EST), and were in subway just getting (for me) some breakfast.
Rupert calls the club and finds out that they usualyl expect around 50 runners. wtf. That wasn't ever good be worthwhile so we came back for the 3pms.
Ran stupidly bad in the ftp 100r early in the rebuy period getting f'd with by everyone, but somehow got to 10k real soon after the first break. Cruised, cruised, cruised for hrs. Hell I almost started forgetting about it. Got to 30k somehow just gangsta short-mid stacking, and then got AA vs KK vs AK and won a 100k pot. That meant that I just gansta cruised over to the FT with a reasonable sized stack. 9th busted fairly fast then there was a long waitout till 8th bust. maybe someone else busted then I busted 2 real quick to get a decent shot at it. Ran real good and got then lsot a big flip either 3 or 4 handed for a huge psoition, but still had chips. I think I bsuted 4th place so had good chips for the 3 handed where I ended up just running things up to the break. Straight back I got AQ vs A9 and I was in a great pos to TID. Little bit of this and that and I end up getting HU with a good chip lead vs one of the worst players at the FT. Wasn't long before I TID for 19.6k. ship it son.

kinda on a heater right now, hopefully tomorrow is even better.

updates yo

2008-04-21T17:07:00.003Z

Been a long time. lets do this.

San Remo:

Hugely fustrating. I get a flight taht lands 2hrs after shaundeeb whom I was rooming with, but manage to arrive at the hotel like 2hrs before him because I took a 150 euro cab ride and he owned my soul with a 18 euro train ride from Nice to San Remo. Whatever.
I busted this shit within 40mins. First hand of the day, limps to button with sb sitting out. He limps and bb checks. Q86cc board or so, bb is about to bet but ehn sees button reach for chips so he checks, and bb bets 1k into 125 pot, bb folds. lol

next orbit I open CO with Q2s with bb sitting out, and same guy in sb 3-bets to 400. I call with 10k effective. flop KQ2. He bets 500, I cib to 1k and he instashoves. I tank and call, and lose to KK. gg me

Online was a little fustrating, did FT a small one whilst in San Remo, then we went to amsterdam. Booking from Nice to Amsterdam 6hrs before the flight cost us £1k for two tickets return. lol.

Amsterdam:

We get there and go to a hotel that we booked, which highn had recommended. Wow when we got there, the room we got sucked balls. We got into a huge arguement with the guy on the desk etc. That night we grinded at highns, which was redic. I was rolling good in a load of stuff, then the internet connection fucks me and I win zero pots in 40mins on like 8 tables due to internet probs and computer probs and running cold. f me.
Next night we get some kind of apartment which was a lot better. I get super deep in the party major and then get fucked losing a 1.4mill pot near the end for huge CL AKs vs AA AI pre. Sigh.
Rest of the trip I dont really remember too much, but whatever, bananananannanas.

Monte Carlo:

Back to the live poker. We stayed at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel. That place was ballin out of control. The lift was so balla there was a tv and a couch in there. We ordered like 200euros of room service every night too.
I played day 1b and ran aweful at the start. Couldnt get anything going. At the end of level 1 i have jsut over 13k chips from 15k starting. Not a prob I guess. Near the end of level 2 I had less than 8k chips. I called a 3x raise from sb with A2s and bb called. Flop was T54r and i c/c a 500 bet with backdoor FD. turn 3. ding nigga. I c/r AI and he calls with 54o. i hold. ship it son.
level 3/4 I started running that shit.
First 2 levels I got my ass 3-bet about 7 times cos, well i dunno. Dude kept showing me AQ and KK. I was wtfing all over. Then I crush souls.
I open ATs from MP, villain who'd 3-bet me a lot calls right behind me and its Hu to the flop. I cbet a K94cc board, he calls. Turn 3, check check. river 2 I check, he bets and I snap him off like a gangsta.
2 hands later I open ATo from EP, to 500 at 75/150 but chuck out one chip. Button throws out 150, because he doesnt realise I raised. So now he calls for 500 and bb calls cos hes retarded. Flop A85. I bet, button calls. turn A. I check call, river blanks I c/c again. and he has complete air. Wtf at his betting, way to rep a boat lol.

Anyway I crush the table for about 45mins then the table breaks and I cry a little. Nothing really eventful happens. I cant cooler anyone and just run crazy card dead. So much so that most of my opens were getting mad mad respect.
At my 3rd table of the day, someone limps at 150/300 and I make it 1200 with J4s. folds round he calls. Flop came like 853. check I bet 1775, call. turn I hit a backdoor FD on a low card and bet again and he folds. ty bro.

Get moved again with like 20mins left. I raise UTG with AQs and get called by a big stack from the button. cbet a Q9x board. turn Q check check. river blank bet/call and i end the day on 38k or so. never got AA at all the whole day and KK once and no QQ. JJ twice. So super happy that I had decent chips and was saving my run good for later imo.

Nope. Day 2 I crush souls and get to 55k early. Then lose KK vs QQ AI pre for a 60k pot vs a fucking retard. He might have been a UK pro or something but fuck, run better. He bsuted a few hrs later jsut cos hes terrible but doesnt realise it. Sigh.
ended the day on 33k having to ninja shortstack my way there. at one point with 30bbs I raise/fold TT from EP vs a huge nit (same guy with QQ) which sucked fucking balls.
One intereting hand, i think he was 600/1200/100 and bvb. sb opens 6x. I have 22. No idea wtf to do I start tanking but realise theres probably no way I can continue, so I laugh out loud and show a 2 faking that I fake tanked. he shows JTo. lol good times.

Day 3 i rejam pretty well, but end up making a bad shove UTG+1 7 handed with 13bbs and ATo and bust like 96th with 80 paying. Sigh. The bubble apparently took 2.5hrs. eek!

Busted and was lifetilting. Decided not to play any of the postlims. Played with Moneymaker at foosball. He's pretty damn good. I played the game a load during the last 2 years of highschool, and as anyone would tell u I dominated. Moneymake is definitely better than me by a decent margin, and would probably be moreso if the table had been any good. Was fun, thankfully I didnt play HU for rolls as was initially discussed.

Back in the Uk a couple of days. Saturday went ok, I did ok iirc I think I ftd something. Then yesterday I came 3rd int he 14k gtd 6max which I should have done a lot better in, got shafted in the UB major with 25 left, shafted in the 215 HU but cashed. Bubbled the ftp mill losing AK vs AT AI pre bvb with like 25-30bbs when my image was redic bad. Sigh. lost AK vs 88 with 10bbs effective in teh early 100r to cash for 1.5k.
... but ship the 40k gtd. ob v asunday so the prizepool was jsut under 100k and I shiped 23.8k.

busted 7/8 people at the FT, jsut running amazing. AA > KK, QQ > JJ, A2o > JJ, AJ>KJ, QJs >TT, AJ >A6, QQ >AJ. all of them AI pre

holla

bah

2008-03-31T05:25:00.003Z

Well, im done for the month. im estimating -4k, maybe a little more/less, and def more than that further in makeup :(

Cashed around 1.5k today, but obv im still down. Plauyed real bad to start the day in teh brawl, but I played pretty well the rest of the day and didnt really get breaks i guess.
Went almost deep in the ipoker, just got a bit short late, nvm. Cant remember the mansion it sucked tho. Did table manage pretty well, and only 7 tabled a little, mostly 6 tabling but that was to some extent xpert busting (although in good spots). I sighed really hard in the sunday lotto, the only one under $150 that i entered today. busted 101st for less than $200. lol That was fustrating only because the field was obv super weak. Oh well, I gotta now book a ticket to san remo. Probably flying tomorrow. My only goal before then, is to get a haircut. Looking forward to the trip, I grinded really really hard this month, probably in the region of 150hrs+.

Hopefully I saved all my run good for northern italy.

2 FTs today

2008-03-27T02:42:00.002Z

and 1 total cash. wasnt even in either. -10k since the last post. pretty fucking fustrating

yeah ok

2008-03-19T08:13:00.002Z

Saturday started bad when I woke up late and missed the first 3 donkaments I was meant to play. Sunday was even worse. Went to Jack's house (doctor_fun) and he managed to get us locked out of his flat before I even turn up. I'd decided to go to his house to grind Sundays as I'd never been and we always go to mine, and as he comes down to let me in, manages to lock himself out of his flat. He doesn't even have shoes on. In the end we go back to mine and I get to miss a lot of majors, and also get to be tilted for the whole day.

Ran crazy bad on Sunday, -1.4k cash monday and but up maybe 800 to 1k at donkmanets and then - maybe 800 today cos I don't win the big equity flips and also because I bubble the Nightly Hundred Grand like a pro. Then -$700 at 10/20 cap but equity adjustedwise I was 1.8k below.

I'm 3.8k down in showdown equities over 5k hands this month, which is really annoying.
I'm feeling really good about the way I'm playing right now, jsut really disappointed in the results. Gonna play more donkmanets tomorrow I guess, I'm obviously continuing to play them because I'm too stubborn to quit till I've won. I think one 10k cash and I'm back to cash or if I go through till Sunday and still win nothing, I'm gonna play cash for the rest of the month and only play donkaments at the weekend.

Hoping to Post Before Sunday

2008-03-14T18:08:00.002Z

It would mean I had a good day on Saturday THATS WHY. Grinded the donkaments again yesterday, and registered for 6.5hrs. Ran kinda funny, with the first two that I busted being set over sets. The some inexplicable shizzle happens and some dude costs me a $109 sat with 30 left and 10 getting seats cos hes a jedi and can predict 4 outers in those old 3-way bet/call/shove/call... overcall situations.
I ended up converting one of the $109 sats for $1k in FTP t$ and then 6th in the 3r. That was probably the most fustrating, 1 tabling for about 2hrs to win $900. :(
Was extremely disappointing not to win anything again, but I'm really starting to think that I'm playing well. Doing a lot better at not punting stacks and basically just grinding that 10-20bbs stack to go deep.
This was just brief, random post, hopefully I have some brags to come soon.

Crazy Bored

2008-03-13T12:37:00.004Z

Woke up early today, around 10.30am- ish. Not really sure why I woke up so early. I've had a day off from poker and right now am feeling a huge itch to pay. When I say play I mean RIGHT NOW. However I am crazy hungry and also have several other things to sort out so can't. I also have this unexplainable 'feeling' that I'm gonna drop 1-2k right off the bat.

Monday I put in a very short registration period, a whole 30mins. Played the Nightly Hundred Grand, a $216 WSOP sat and the 50-50s on both sites. The 50/50s went real bad, but thats ok. Have to run bad somewhere. The $216 sat I busted iirc on a flip in a good spot, so i was happy. The 100k sucked though. I came 26th for $688 or so, but c'mon ONE TIME. With a 25bbs stack I lost a flip when UTG opens, UTG+1 flats, I shove UTG+2 and folds to UTG+1 who calls TT. Sigh.

Today I have to do some coaching, then I plan to play from 15.00pm Pokerstars time (or EST I guess to real world people - holla!). I'll probably register all the way to 22.00pm if I feel awake enough, otherwise stopping short isn't disasterous, but isnt ideal.

For some reason I have hesitations about playing cash again. I'm not sure why. It might be because I'm not the best dealing with new things. Not that cash is new, but it's been a while since I've grinded out 2-3k hands every day and theres some trepidation about how the games are, will I have to readapt etc.

I know I've been like this in all my life. I tend to like to do stuff that I already am familiar at. This is because once I'm familiar, I get very good at them fast. An example is when I was a kid and just started high school. It was a private school in a town 12miles away. I had to wear a blazer/tie etc etc and it was pretty scary, since I came from a low class primary school and didn't know anybody at the new school. Anyway in the common rooms (yah they were so balla that each year had its own common room) there was a pool table, table football table and two table tennis tables.
Although I really wanted to play table tennis, I'd played a lot of pool as a kid having had a table at home. I didnt wanna embarass myself so ended up just sitting around watching for a long time, whilst trucking fools at pool.
Eventually, maybe about a month into the new school I had missed the bus home and had to wait an hour for the next one. There we're only a few people in the common room at the time, so I went over and played table tennis. The way it works is a 1 point, 1 time and your off. Win and you stay on the table, lose and you go back to the end of the queue. Well I sucked, and I sucked hard. obv. I'm pretty sure I got aced and/or didn't return the ball for the first 3-4 times i tried. For the next week or so I stayed late after school every day and started getting better actually hitting the ball. lol. Well eventually I started playing at break times and lunch times when the crowds were a lot bigger and people were a lot better.
People played this game, as they do poker (and I assume every other game). Poorly. I ended up getting really good and started winning several points in a row. Soon enough I was good enough that I was training with the school team, which was a surpsingly good one since the coach took it really seriously. That year I won the U13 County Championship and the U13 school team reached the National Schools Final for top 3 in the country (although the other 2 teams both beat us 8-0!)

Poker has kinda been like that, for a long time I played freerolls and £1.20 SnGs on crypto untill I thought F this and started playing NL£25; before finding 2p2, then running crazy hot. Hopefully once I overcome my current mental block, I'll be hitting those big months on the regular.

Sundays

2008-03-10T19:18:00.002Z

I played well and ran better. So I went for another Sunday where I'd only play the bigger stuff. I enjoyed it and think my Sundya ROI will be a lot higher this way. Only smaller one I played was the sunday lotto aka the Sunday Hundred Grand for $11 buyin.

Played quite a few, but managed to somehow not register for the FTP 750k and the Second Chance. Not really sure how I missed them, probably distracted by the other donkaments. I won a $215 satellite on FTP for a $10k package but then almost immediately busted the 40k gtd with 16 left, which was fustrating. Not actually sure if my shove was any good in a re- iso spot. nvm, such is life.
I cashed for around 2k yesterday, plus the seat on top.

There are a lot of satellites running right now for a variety of different things. There's EPT San Remo (although no stars sats anymore), Monte Carlo, WSOP ME, Irish Open, PPM and some Genting Stanley something or other.

I've been getting pretty damn close with the WSOP sats, just a little annoying not to convert any. I've decided not to put that much cash in this week, will probably just do more tournaments and see if I can convert some of the new found running good.

For the month I've played a whoping 1k hands. Up $3k in it tho, and although 1k hands is usually a quick 1.5hr session, This has taken around 5.5hrs because I've been 1-3 tabling after my donkament sessions. Later this week I might put in a few hrs just grinding 9 tables or something but I'm enjoying donkaments and am able to play decently long sessions when doing them, something which I've never been good at doing with cash.

Probably gonna take today off since I had a busy Saturday and Sunday, and I'm hoping for 10k hands before Saturday again.

Almost did it

2008-03-03T09:10:00.003Z

Almost went zero for sunday. Played ok actually, I tried to play a few less tables and it worked out pretty well. I think in the future, on sundays I'll only play $200+ and not bother playing any of the other random stuff.
Blew a huge stack in the 10r, mainly cos I suck at freerolling AKs vs AKo and then losing KT vs QT on KJ8 for a huge pot. Could have easily had like 150k at like 300/600 but nvm.
In the WSOP $500 sat, busted 30ish with 10 getting spots QQ vs AJ for like 8 or 9bbs. Didn't run good there, but just played well overall.
Thought i wasn't cashing in anything, but I ended up actually cashing in the sun mill for what i'm ALMOST certain is my first time ever. ls;fsklnf for cking who came 7th in this but congrats ray at the same time for shipping the 100r.
Got bored sweating, so just played 40 WSOP step 1 sats to check them out. Made 6 step 2s, and a couple of set 1s, but I think i ran really bad busting 4th and 5/th in a load of them.
I'm not sure exactly how many i bought into tho, since i used up a load of step 1 ticekts that i won. I don't know if they're standard for $7 SnGs, but omg they were crazy soft.

********************************************************
The above was written on sunday. Today I played a few random donkaments. Bored of posting about running bad but I really did run crazy bad today to bubble 3 satellites to random things. Also just busted a $55 on stars ITM having had a huge stack for a while because I got a setup. oh well.
I might play some live poker tomorrow, or maybe just take the whole day off. I plan to get to the Vic at some point though to register for the GUKPT. Feeling confident as per usual.

Also congrats to exitonly for 100r.

Busted LAPC

2008-02-25T15:48:00.003Z

I'm just a little annoyed at myself really. I'm starting to think big laydowns are crucial in tournaments, and I really have to start doing them. IN cash games, to some extent i don't have to make them due to a lack of need to consider ICM, but in donkaments its different.

at 400/800/100 i got to 120k, and was out 2nd hand of 600/1200/200. pffffffffffffff

wtf now:

300/600/50 some random woman opens MP to 2.5k with 35k stack, CO shoves for 7.5k i have JJ in sb with about 50-60k stack. now what?

pfff:

85k stack at 500/1000/100

AA in MP raise to 3k, HJ (young internet kid who'd been active) calls, CO calls (oung azn dude who plays strange, kinda really like a live pro), bb calls.

stacks:

HJ: 75k, CO, 50, bb, 130k

flop K93dd. check, bet 6k, raise 15k, fol, fold, i ship but should have called and lose to 33 obv.

o rly:

400/800/75

allen cunningham opens 23k/24k stack to 2400 from CO, i defend sb with 87dd. bb calls
flop 852r. i lead 4.2k, fold, cunningham ships for just over 16k more. i sigh, count pot etc, and call. he asks me 'do u have an 8?' i freeze cos my mind is running 'wtf?!' and he shows 86. skill game obv.

I'm gonna sweat everyone still in i guess. that i can remember off the top of my head (and yes im too lazy to look it up f u): thayer, ray, watts, JP, john, jennifer tilly and brystmar (who i sat with all day and he knew who i was but i didnt know who he was and wtf was he doing 3-betting me 3 times in one level????)

I've started the golf swing style rebuild of my 'game'. i actually hate using that term, as well as 'poker career' cos, well, its lame. Anyway basically I dislike my approach to certain situations which come up, as well as the image that I set up and use. The current way I set up my image is not as good live as it is online. especially in donkaments cos I HATE chipping down. I really have to control myself. I can get a big stack early easily, but once I get it I'm not using it properly and in certain spots I'm sucking so bad just sitting back and chilling for like an hour or so. Every level that I go into trying to tell myself to chill and play tight, I do something pretty retarded imo. Recently it's just not been letting go of hands, or at least taking suboptimal lines with overpairs when I've elected instead to go for the hero play and try and get it in and pray to baby jesus raptor that im good.kdjbfjsndl

i'm feeling really good about poker even tho busting sucked, and i have some pretty exciting ideas about running some 'advanced' math to my thought process (note: its only advanced because I hadn't thought of it till now. it's probably std and everyones spent some time on it). either way i'm gonna sit with pokerstove, wordpad and a lot of some tv series and get it done.

Feb is kinda a wash. goals for march:

50k cash game hands.
play every sunday
maybe play 1 or 2 small live donkaments somewhere like gukpt.
win a seat to monte carlo or maybe bellagio wpt since i would really like to go to that too.
three 5 fig cashes in donkament,
be up monies in all donkmanets.
play less tables with respect to donkaments.
win 50k

I really may end up playing like 80k hands and a bazillion donkamnets. i guess in the region of 200 donkmanets online should be right, mainly because I'm gonna cut down on number of tables. f it who am i kidding, i can really log 400 kinda easily. I feel good about poker as i said and really am just gonna grnd for a whole month and make money and stuff. I still want well into 6 figs for 2008 and really do expect it. I think however I've been lazy with my technical development recently and i've also been terriblly unmotivated. I've also never worked hard with pokerstove and SnG power tools.

eventful/uneventful/blah

2008-02-09T19:24:00.000Z

well heres whats been going on.

3 days ago i dropped like 4k at 10/20 at the commerce. ran bad bluffs, some terrible and just got no hands. In back to back hands, duck played this:

UTG straddles, folds to button who makes it 140, duck makes it 420 from bb with AA.

Flop K53. check check
turn 2. duck bets 600, button makes it 1.7k, duck shoves for 4.5k. dude tanks, flips over a K, tanks a lot lot longer, and finally calls. duck holds.

next hand, lior opens to 70, same villain, now CO calls. duck makes it like 340. lior folds, CO makes it 840. duck calls

flop Q86dd, duck checks, villain bets about 1200 iirc with about 4.5-5k beind. duck calls.
turn blank, duck checks, villain announces AI, duck had already given me a sweat so i knew she had QQ ldo.

river A. villain has AA. gg /life etc etc.

I played all night that night just to win back some cash. I prob played bad a lot too. Next day missed everything and then the day after was 1.5k event for lapc. I felt good but ended up missplaying one hand and having to fold to river shove. still had 30bbs. then i limp shove QT like 18bbs deep vs ducks iso and get tehre vs AQ.

I shortstack ninja a while, then get 77 in vs AK and win. WOOT.
at 100/200/25 i have10k and AKs UTG. i open 600 at a new table where i'd been tight for 2 orbits but had opened the button the folded to a 3-bet 2 orbits before. UTG+1 calls, UTG+2 3-bets to 2.5k with 5k behind. folds to me, i shove and UTG+1 calls fastish. I think that UTG+2 has already called too, and flip my hand. He hasn't and decides to call with J now knowing for sure i dont have AA. JJ wins obv and i hate life.
busted this one with 6.5k at 200/400/50 when i open the button to 1100 with QQ, david pham makes it 2k more from sb with A8o and calls my shove cos the turn is always an A ball.

Night after we went out to dinner at the cheesecake factory, which im a big fan of and then found a spot to play some pool and jsut hang out etc.

Tonight was weird. I won 300 then lost 800 online, eskabor and tj are at commerce and come back. I decide to flip 800 with esko, and lose obv. I lose 4-3 in a 7 flip series at 800 a throw, then lose the 1.6k martingale. so im stuck 3.2k and whatever food time. Go to sushi then a ghetto ass liquor store, before coming back to play 10/point chinese cos. It degenerates into a $40 6-way flips, i ended up losing 4k more to esko cos wow. At this point it was me esko, thayer, paul b, and tj. Then duck comes back and we keep flipping a little more.

Somehow TJ and esko start flipping. Esko cant get action, so he was giving JT 5k to 4.5k on straight badugi flips. I'm too lazy to explain badugi, wikipedia it yourself if you don't know the game. For flips, we obv had no draws. We also wouldnt shuffle normally, just mess all the cards up, ahve them in a pile and have each flipper pick and sweat one card at a time.

Anyway TJ and esko quit, but with esko down so he goes and loses to duck on a flip for 5.5k iirc. it might have been two seperate flips actually. I end up taing a 4.5k to 5k flip, then run super hot and at 3.5k-3k i get up to esko oweing 27.6k. We do an 8k to 7k flip and i lose cos, well such is life and ended up being only up 12.1k on the session and 5k on the whole thing when i could easily have been up 50k if i had just ran a little hotter (even tho thats hard obv).

anwyas sleepy time cos I cant stay awake anymore.

LAPC

2008-02-06T02:35:00.000Z

I've been out here for 4 days now. Unfortuanately I just woke up at like 5.30pm today which is bad. Haven't really done much here, the room is nice and they actually have aeron chairs in each one.

Sat was teh ladies event. Apparently guys can play, amybe i should have. Anyway I flew in and when I landed called duck, she said she barely had any chips left. took over an hour to get through customs, and called her again from the cab and she was CL! Anyway, easy game and she wins, getting monies, a trophy, a chipset and a copper horse.

Sunday was uneventful. Played sundays and std results. Watched the superbowl tho.

Yesterday I busted the $1k in meh fashion. Played pretty well imo, but just never saw any cards, then when i did see them they were monsters and i got zero action. Just fustrating, doubled then built up then build down then lost a flip for 1/2 my stack, blah blah blah.

PLayed cash. Ran one bluff which was pretty lol. Ended up -800 at 10/20 which is ok considering the bluff, and then was down 300 in the 5/10 with 400 cap buyin cos i dont run good preflop. I even had to fold TT pre for a 30bbs in a cash game. I almost cried.

Obv another bad sunday

2008-01-28T02:26:00.000Z

In for 3.3k. I busted a lot of things in really gay ways, got it in v good in mansion 150k gtd for a 3x avg stack but i lose cos thats how things go.

Not sure exactly how much i cashed for today. almost FT'd cake 22r, but I lost one 75/25 and one flip to bust. great got like $130. 4th in the party 18k gtd, and just dominated the table but lost every showdown so kept doubling shorties, then lost AT vs QQ bvb. pffffffff

crypto was teh gayest, had a decent stack but midway through me and jack get drawn for the same table and crypto wont let two accounts in from teh same IP so one has to sit out. sjghushgulfgao;daf

actually kinda depressed but i'll be over it tomorrow

a post every day

2008-01-27T07:35:00.000Z

Just a quick one. I'm for 3k total today, cashed about 1k. Definitely ran super bad, had people watching to confrim :(
busted the mansion 1k with 23k at 75/150 with KK vs AA on Q9xcc vs a suepr aggro opponent with who i'd had a load of history with. sigh.
was close to a 25k gtd but lost AJ vs AT AI pre for 40bb pot with like 30odd left. ya good call bro.
Cant remember how i busted teh 320 on ftp, but i assume it was some kind of super cooler/flip, oh and i came 23rd in two other donkaments in pretty sigh spots.

Again very close to winning a bazillion dollars but no dice. I was actually very very happy with my play all day, and I really feel like good things are gonna happen real soon.

Current target is to make $10k anyway it comes before LAPC, and a sub target of 1000 P5s tlb points. I'm serious that I'm gonna do it.

So i'm not happy with myself

2008-01-25T06:35:00.000Z

I was in position to win 3 donkaments today, ended up FTing one and just getting really unlucky in it.
Spent about 1300 today, and I think I cashed for around $700. Maybe a little more. Not sure. What I do know is that the last 4 days have sucked. In those days I took one day off in betwee, so over 3 days I've played 11k hands of donakments spanning jsut over 100 donkaments and I'm down a little bit.
tbh I think I'm playing too fast once into the cash and getting deep. I really think that I'm gonna win something real soon because I've fixed a huge leak. Now all I need is a little luckboxing at teh right time, and I shoud be picking up donkament wins again.
For a $200 bonus, I have to somehow log 1200 party points in the next two days. I guess I can probably do it in one, might end up playing some cash sometime or else just do all these donkaments and expect to win.
I've probably been in a downswing, but I think I also haven't played my best/optimally, so I definitely blame poor play for some lack of results. My past few blog entries have all been about me bitching. Well I hope to stop that.
I usually like posting some stuff about what I'm doing outside of poker, btu really I've just been spending my whole time grinding donkaments. I'm gonna grind from now on till monday. Probably take a day off on monday then get back to grinding a combo of cash and donkaments. fwiw I've actually sorta enjoyed playing the donkaments recently, and I've been blogging cos I've had nothing to do after I've finished. Every session I end, I'm actually kinda excited to get back the next day to try and win one. I've never had that with cash games before.
I also haven't plaeyd the daily 100rs and 200rs simply because I don't have enough cash for them. Months of travelling now has actually been a bit harsh on the BR. I'm not exactly busto, but I kinda feel like I am. I've been well under 6 figs online for a while now, so hopefully I can start winning some stuff to rebuild a little.
As I said before, LAPC is coming soon so thats why I'm trying to grind hard to get a bit of money online before I leave again. I'm looking forward to day after day of live donkaments. One thing that tilts me about them is that if you bust, then there's always a bit of a wait till the next one. LAPC will be my frist proper series and I'm very very excited. If anyone has recommendations of what to do in LA touristwise, pls tell me in comments. So far everywhere I've been I've had no idea what I want to do, as I'd obv never research anything. end result being that I'm probably missing out on a lot of things.

bah anyway enough of the rambling, time for bed.

I'm gonna update every day untill i run good.

2008-01-24T06:52:00.000Z

I wonder how big variance is in donkaments. When I first started, I couldnt win anything. A couple of months ago I'd win a donkament almost every day that I played them. Right now I cant make a final table to save my life.

List:

ftp 32k (163)
50/50 (55)
random stars (5.50)

ftp 15k (55)
party 18k (55)
party 6r (26)
staers 11r (51)
25k (55)
14.5k (75)
5k ftp (26)
13 DS to sun mill (13)
13k crypto (55)
13.5k ftp (26)
25k (109)
20k (11)
25k (75)
5k party (33)
20k party (109)2k crypto (27)
2.5k ub (22)
2k pkr (55)
1k razz (11)

Still running as per usual. I had big stacks in a few things. but then ran like shit and I cant win the important flips to save my like. for a 40k pot (i still have 8k) closish to the bubble in the 25k gtd on stars at 300/600 when i call a CO open from teh button with KK and villain flops a 7-high flush draw and bet/3-bets AI cos hes built like that.

I won the DS for sun mill seat which i took t$ for and obv used most of them up. and I might have cashed the razz, which was like 4hrs for $5 profit. I guess playing donkaments on non sundays is probably a huge waste of time since I cant play the late ones that are good. If I can only really log around 1k-1.5k of donkament buyins each day, per hr EV wise I really shouldnt play these. However I've decided that I'm playing these untill I win something decent, maybe 7-15k range. Not stopping till then.

I also wanna log some cash, so it better happen soon. I felt a little out of sorts the other day when i played, so I'm gonna play a whole day at NL200 and watch some videos. maybe do 3-5k hands. Then do a quick 10k hands and hopefully have time left to hang before i go to LA. I ended up missing a party today cos I woke up at like 7.15pm and people were going to it at 7.30. wtf how do i wake so late. Sucks so hard. Anyway hopefully I'm gonna wake before 1pm tomorrow since I have to meet my PA and stuff

another sunday another grind

2008-01-22T05:15:00.000Z

I kinda like listing stuff.

sun mill 215
party major 215
stars 109
ftp 75
ipoker major 215
boss media major 130E
ftp 75
ftp brawl 240
party 55
party 33
absolute 20
daily 15 grand 11
ub major 215
stars 25k 55
ftp 26
hundred grand 11
ftp mill 535
mulligan 215
2nd chance 215
party 20k 109
stars rebuy 11r (31?)
ftp 75
ftp 55k 163
ftp 24k 26
stars 27.5
stars 3r (15)
random 109

total about $3.3k. cashes. bleh. i think 841 on sun warmup and 155 in a smaller one. i think i knocked out 3 people in teh brawl for 120 and cashed teh ftp mill for 1200.
Another disappointing day obv since i didnt win a bazillion dollars american. I'm gonna grind at least 2-3 days, maybe 4-5 if i can get it in this week for donkaments. Played some cash the other day and just didnt feel like i enjoyed it at all. losing doesnt help obv. blackjack was fun tho, was up 1.1k on party bj. dealer ran hot but i ran like god whenever i had 500 bets down.

I think I'm gonna make some push to get a better p5s donkament leader board thing, maybe a triple crown one week. I looked at others, and you basically have to win a huge donkament and
have a load of 60-150 point scores. So far I have 3 scores total over 70 points and not even close to 100 scores that go towards the ranking. I should fill up what i need over the year of 2008 imo, just need to start putting volume in again.

That was yesterday. Today I was back on that donkament grind. I played over 30 tournaments today ranging from 3r to 162. Ran super bad and I cashed in I think jsut 1 tournament, the 20k gtd 109 on crypto. As I type this im still in a 20/180 which i jsut played cos i thought i might go deep in teh 5r, but obv i suck at taht too. CRypto sucked cos i came 14th or so, it was only 6k for 1st but I lsot 2 flips for 1st place and busted when i was in a good position to win.

Everything else I ran terribly. This whole week has been kinda fustrating tbh. Nvm I'm obv gonna keep grinding and try and book a few wins towards the end of the week.

ugh

2008-01-19T00:32:00.000Z

well i'm really tired right now, its 12am and i've been up like 6hrs. I got a lot of stuff to sort out, mainly my room. I'm also really really cash busto. It's a little fustrating, I guess it#s cos I havent grinded much online so I'm feeling a little low online too. doesnt help that i have like 17k in w$ that i dont need for a while.

gukpt was boring, busted just before 2nd break. i gotta start busting live donkaments on bad beats. i think i've played like 8 so far and busted everyone getting my money in very very behind. I think i'm being slightly too active in spots where i dont need to be. whatever.

booked room and flights for lapc already, how am i so organised????

x-post from hsmtt. kinda interesting theory imo, but a bad call for sure. i think i factored too much in that i was gonna have to get a room somewhere and that the place totally sucked. the only reason that it was worth going was that the standard is like a $10 FO online.

GUKPT 1st leg is today, £1k buyin. I'm on the table and running it over. At first break i have like 70% of the T25 chips on the table and just have a huge stack of them. By the first break (1hr levels, 2 levels per break) i have 3-bet maybe 6 times total. I chipped up a little in a hand where I 3-bet AKo, checked behind a TTxr board and called a bet on both turn A and river J (and was shown QJ lol?)

Anyway next level is 75/150 and I 3-bet/call AKo and flip vs 88 for 12k pot and win. easy game. I'm up to just over 21kish.
Couple of hands later vs Charalambos Xanthos whom i've 3-bet 3 tiems already. he limps i make it 600 with AKdd, bb calls he calls. Flop Qh5d4d, checked to me I bet 1100, fold villain minraises and starts talking a bs about how much I raise him blah blah blah. I shove for 4k more he has 55 and holds. i lol as indicates that he talked me into a shove.

At 75/150 again i 3-bet him with AQ from sb vs button open and he calls and i check oop on QJx. He checks, i fire turn he folds. then I 3-bet him at same blind levels with TT after he minraises pre and he c/fs on 876 2-tone.

I win a load of pots, then open JJ at 100/200 and get 3-bet by the dude behind me. He's a young guy with whom i've talked to a bit after i mentioned that i was at PCA. we chat about PCA; he didnt go but he said that a friend of his FT'd the sun mill whilst there and i'm like: 'lol mkind?' and he says yeah. So i say 'yo im tufat23' and he has no idea who I am. wtf, gtfo. He'd doubled 2nd level with the most retarded hand ever. He limps 99 UTG niel channing limps, yound azn dude who's imo weak passive raises, both call. flop T99hh and UTG now donk leads out, channing calls. turn blank 8 UTG bets again channing raises, utg calls and then snap donk shoves a river Ah. I'm like wtf, channing calls and its 99 vs TT. xpert guys.

anyway young dude now 3-bets to 1625 with about 14k effective. i lol cos this is the first time he's done anything vs me and i think hes FOS. I call (its a a tarp?)
flop 986sss, i have no spade, i check for a c/r AI, he checkes behind. turn 6 i bet 1700 he calls. river blanks, I check he bets 3100 and I sigh really really hard and call. 64o is good sir.

next orbit I open JTo UTG and MP calls. hes been kinda agrro basically jsut playing super high AF and no ones played back. flop K73r i bet 800 he makes it 1500 more, i tank for 45secs+ and shove. he folds after maybe 10secs and i show J high cos i roll like that. not sure what to make of showing those tbh. thoughts?

2 hands later I'm in sb. Young azn dude oopens CO to 525, bambos calls i make it 2k with A7s and 12k effective at start. CO folds, button shoves for 10k more.

I seriously make an agressive call here. I kinda dont like it anymore, but I think i got rushed because the clock was called on me really fast and I was trying to think through at what pot odds I can call here. I'm pretty sure its TT+ or AQ+ and i have 30% equity. i think 5% of the time hes got KQo but unlikely from the chat he was giving too. I decided to completely ignore it since i didnt know if i was getting leveled, but he took a £10 note out of his pocket and said taht I could have it if i called. tehn 20 secs later takes it back. since I had no idea what level he was on, and assuming that i was gonna get leveled since he has been a lifepro for at least 2x my lifetime i decided that i would totally ignore all chat.

My thinking is that i'm getting 3-2 on the call, so a normal nuetral EV stance i need 40% equity. obv i think i have 30% equity so i'm giving up 2.5k i.e. 10% of the pot in equity. add on top that its my donkmaent life on the line, i have to figure out what % tahts worth too. i was thinking around 5k on top of the 2.5k but is that too much to give up when i call and lose?
if i drop to 10k after folding i have 50bbs but the next level is 150/300/25 and is the first ante level. I kinda hate 33bbs in that spot imo. i think at 10k stack people will play back at me a lot or do some funky stuff. at 25k stack after jsut calling a shove not getting odds, im pretty sure no one will 3-bet me light or ever 4-bet me light and i can totally run over the table with absolutely no resistance. OMG THIS KID CALLS HIS TOURNAMENT LIFE AI WITH A7s AND SHOVES J HIGH on Kxx BOARDS!!!11111. I figure taht i'm gonna have to make up at least 7.5k when i call and win over teh pot odds im getting. does this make logicall sense? i decided that at 25k i would make up at least around 5k, but then i get the clock called on me so i dont have enough time ot process everything and decide that the location of the donkament is in a tough place if im there past 11pm so i dont mind gambling and he obv holds with qq. i think 3-2 is not good enough to call there, but can i call getting 2-1? usually i think not and i wouldnt have 3-bet but people we're folding extremely frequently to my 3-bets and i figured that was a spot that bambos' range preflop was xtremely wide when he calls on the button but not when he shoves. i jsut felt taht if not handcuffed, i'm gonna go from 25k-60k 90% of the time by the end of the day, playing 9 levels.

Back in the big LDN

2008-01-14T18:18:00.000Z

So I'm back now for a couple of days. Had a good start yesterday. played about 2.8k worth of donkmanets and won the daily fifteen grand on stars, unfortuanately its only a $11 buyin but 1st was 6.8k

I also played a satellite to the GUKPT. It was a $250 buyin and I won a seat to the brighton GUKPT so I'm gonna go play that next week sometime. They're so soft so I'm excited.

Since last time I've been to NY and buffalo for the bills-giants game, and then vegas for the msnl house. So much stuff happneed theres no way I can remember it all. Im gonna try and start blogging whilst im at placess o that I can give all teh stories. After that PCA. Such a dissapointment going inot day 3 with 150k and busting 133 with 120 paying.

Plans right now are for LAPC which is happening in a couple of weeks.

Oh noes, I get to play a sunday!

2007-12-18T00:34:00.000Z

Actually the first proper sunday grind in a while.

This is what I played, in no particular order since this is what I wrote them down in as I registered for them a little randomly.

boss media 320 euros (about $450)
sun warmup 215
15 gtd on stars 109
SH on mansion 108
150k gtd mansion 108
uboc 1050
10k gtd ftp 75
109 sat to ftp mill 109
75 sat to mill 75
betfair special 550 (1800)
ipoker major 215
14k gtd ftp75 75
25k gtd ftp 75 (398.99)
11r on stars 78 (318.59)
absolute 75k gtd 162
2nd chance 215 (467.78)
mulligan 215
cake 100k gtd 162
stars pca sat 650
rndm $11 11 (13.92)
sun lotto 11
party major 215
ftp mill 535
stars 25k gtd 55 (224.70)

So I spent $5523 in donkament entries yesterday, no FTs. ran kinda bad, in one 3 min stretch i busted 20bb stacks in 3 donkaments with pure flips with decent hands, and lost 50bb pot in the party when i had 40bbs at the start (which is huge for party donkaments).

Did a few sats to teh ftp 1 mill, didnt realise it was a 535 but doesnt really matter. again tho i spent a lot trying to sat into it because I started early with the warmup and party major but I didnt have anything else running so decided playing those sats would be worthwhile.

betfair was terrible, i kept d/cing every hand and in the first 2 levels i think i played like 10 hands, of which i folded like 9, or got to fold 9. anyway in the end i got skier_5 to play for 30% when we had like 40k at 100/200 no ante. lol i was huge but couldnt actually log in, starting stacks were 5k. i cashed for 1800 in that :( but i guess its not the worst since at one point i almost had to give highn 40% which is just stupid.

biggest disappointment of the day really was the 2nd chance, with about i think 100 left i lost AK vs QQ AI pre when i 4-bet shoved cold for 2nd in chips, but pretty much 1st and it was for like 140bbs or soemthing redic. I was sighing all over teh place obv.

return of $3224, but 540 is going to skier. i get 525 back from shaun for the uboc that he had action in and the 650 pca sat. so only down 1664.

Ok this isnt usually what ure gonna get on this blog, im just terribly bored so giving a breakdown of last night. Jack (doctor_fun) was grinding with me last night and almost went deep in the million but obv flipping isnt his strong point either.

still need to book flights to america, going in like 2 days. i wanted to go aussie, but I'll piss off too many people whom I've already made arrangements for things with. Biggest thing right now is I need some w$ to buy into the PCA

edit: cashed in the party for 418, but then i lost a 1k flip with ahnuld cos J4 runs hot vs me

what it do

2007-12-15T19:42:00.000Z

Finally back in the Uk for at least 4 days...

I gotta book tickets to NY, not sure exactly waht im doing just yet. I'm gonna go vegas for the msnl house and then pca.

So since the last blog entry I've been to thailand, macau paris and prague. Thailand was a blast, but i think I was there like 3days too many as i managed to pick up a cold (its like 30 degrees celcius out there, wtf) . Macau was fun, I managed to miss the first level, do well in the 2nd level then go redic card dead and busto kinda fast. However I enjoyed hanging with timex, bond, bondgirl, ski and frank out there, especially when we went to the spa which was the craziest thing ever.
No, not a sex spa or anything dodgy like that, it was a proper spa for relaxation and it had everything you could imagine. I think I fell asleep there 3-4 times.

After that I was back in the Uk for a few days, maybe 2-3, then I went to paris. That was such a different experience to all the rest of my travelling so far, mainly cos it wasnt hanging out with poker players and I enjoyed it a lot. Paris has a lot of stairs and everything feels kinda cramped, but I got a nice coat out there, so lots of fun. Plus I got to win a small donkament which is kinda nice since I havent played much recently. I was tehre cos it was my friends 21st and she was doing some year abroad for uni in france. Was also different cos I knew I was gonna hang with basically all guys in prague, so it was cool to be in paris and be hanging out with jsut girls.

Straight after I flew out to prague on the 9th for ept prague yo. I played day 1b. Since its still fresh in my mind, I guess I can give a blow by blow.

First hand at the table I turn up and everyone folds to my sb with the bb sitting out, so I just randomly chuck out some chips and steal ldo.

Next hand on the button, annette_15 opens 3x UTG and I call A2cc OTB. AK5 board, she cbets obv, I call and I decide to check down even though the board was like AK535. Villain shows a 3 and I'm like whatever here I play any ace obv.
I really hate taking that exact line in a cash game, but early in a donkament I dunno how much value there is in chucking out a huge river bet.

I decide that its live poker, so I'm gonna limp and call and stuff. I run two good bluffs against old people, cos they're old and they nut peddle.

25/50 10kish effective.
I open 125 with JTo from early-mid and get 3-bet to 300 by some old dude. He was also quite overweight. That was my read so i call. Flop 9xx I check and he checks. Obv i called pre to stack his AA so now he obv has AK so im gonna valuetown him then bluff him.
turn blanks, I bet 300, he stacks his chips like hes gonna raise, counts out a bet then calls. The minute I see this I know I'm snap betting the river so I count 1.5 seconds and chuck out 1200. Ship the fold but he doesnt look pleased. I consider showing but tbh its live and I never get enough hands so I need all the bluff equity I can get since I always run so cold.

25/50 10kish effective.
I'm in bb with QTs, folds to button who opens to 250. I consider just straight up folding which I think might be the most logical decision, but yo its live so I call and we're super deep. One way of thinking about donkaments that I'd never thought of before was that early in donkaments ure effectively playing a 200bb cash game with the dumbest people ever. If just one of them was at a 5/10 or higher table everyone would be scrambling to play but in live donkaments the biggest droolers in the world play, so u play too.
Anyway, this guy was old too so I call and flop AQJcc with backdoor spades. He cbets, I actually think like 500, whatever I call hoping I can catch and he will do something retarded. turn is a club. I think for like 9-14 seconds, doing some kinda thinking head turning thing which I should really just cut out but I never can. I check he checks behind kinda fast. I actually think I'm beat here way too often to do anything but hit a QTK or club, and even if I hit the T i'm not the most happy. River is a club and I fire 1500 in reasonable time and he folds.

The table is awesome, me and annette are the only young kids at the table, and everyone else just looks retarded bad. Annette opens way too much abnd I'm getting kinda bored, then at 50/100 both blinds are sitting out for the hand. I'm sighing all over the place inside cos if I pick up a hand here I put myself getting 3-bet at like 90% cos i think annette saw me look at the stacks sitting out plus I know she wants to own me.
KQo UTG+2 and yah I'm sighing really hard. I open to 300 she 3-bets to 1125. bleh, timex thinks I can just open limp pre, which i really dont mind either. i talked to skier after about it and he liked my idea of 4-betting to 2.5k and calling a shove given that I put her on total air here at least 70%, although if she shoves I think shes bluffing maybe 30%, but i still call anyway cos KQo is unbeatable pre, and i can quote randallin by declaring 'I got the nizzles son!' and I also get to fistpump slam my cards and then get shown AA.

whatever I call, shaun liked it. flop JJ9, I check, she bets 2k with just over 5.5k behind. I'm pretty sure here that she never has QQ+ she would bet less to induce, shed want a c/r AI from me, which I was doing on like a bazillion boards tbh. betting 2k is like the nuts or air here and shes trying to rep pot commitment , and since I already put her on air I shove, she kinda apologetically calls in a strange way and I'm sighing all over the place. J4o holds.

Apparently cos I'm skilled I still have about 3.5kish, maybe just more or less. So i'm just grinding like im dead inside. nothing really happens, i missclick open to 375 at 50/100 like 2 hands later but everyone folds so I'm dope. Table is lol, others now get to play and annette owns them all cos they're pussies and I cant do shit cos im short. at 75/150 i open to 375, button cold calls, she 3-bets I snap shove both snap fold.

Some new dude arrived, and I think he seemed competant. He plays and wins a few, the he opens and I'm really ancy now, CO calls and i'm like lol T4o, 3-bet. Both fold I flash a 4. 2 hands later at 75/150 the pfr opens to 525 I call JTs with just under 8k effective. I think to myself sigh this really could be it and i'm gonna flop JT9 and bust to 99. lol fish thought process. It's really hard to keep yourself from not stabbing yourself in live poker and this is the stupid shit that goes through my head. Flop QTJcc and i lol pretty hard cos of the retardness I'd been thinking like 2secs before (inside again). villain bets, I raise like 2.7x cos I think he could have any combo of all kindsa stuff here, he shoves and i have to call. he has 89cc and I dont hit 4 outs. rigged.

bleh, so the next night is the 500 euro postlim, 1 rebuy/addon something like that. Miss it cos we're too lazy to go to the bank but we managed to score some shit so its all good. 2k euro is the day after.
Timex and skier both cash in teh main event, but skiers to tilted to play after risking his tournament life with 0% equity (in joke, he had 97 on 9879ccc vs Q9 and 56 for flopped straight flush). We hang around jsut shooting the shit then go to the tables. Shaundeeb was on annettes table and she owns me again cos we're talking about how bad people are, then she goes 'yeah some people go AI with KQ and think its the nuts'. Takes a second to realise what she said then everyone laughs at me :(. Anyway I'm on timex's table and we have the most hilarious table ever.

The guy to my left is retarded, about 65yrs old and the biggest nit ive ever seen. At 300/600/75 later, hed call 2k preflop with 2k behind, then snap fold the flop. xpert. He also had the hugest thickest glasses ever. i'm in the 7 seat and timex is in the 3 seat, and he has some danish/scandi/nordic whatever oldish dude but someone who actually looks like a 'live pro'.

I do some overlimping and just blah blah it a bit, then:

blinds: 25/25 7k effect

timex opens UTG+2 to 75, UTG+3 3-bets to 150 and I srsly consider cold calling, but say whatever 525 bitches cos cold 4-betting is the new thang. timex folds, villian calls.
flop 772, check i bet 800 he calls, turn Q. I hate the card and check behind. river blanks he bets 1k i fold.
The 'live pro' does some standard live pro style stuff, limping A7o UTG and valuetowning hard and stuff vs live retards.

next stuff, stuff in bold is my thoughts:

quoted from timex cos im lazy:

First hand v him, I raise T6o on the button to 150, he calls in the SB, BB calls

Flop: KQJr, checked around
turn: A, checked to me, I bet 350, SB calls
river: blank, checked to me, I bet 2k, he calls with Ax

Next orbit, tufat opens to 150 UTG, I raise to 525 OTB with J7s, he calls in the SB (note I know timex is light but fold cos of cold caller. i folded KJo)

Flop: Q96dd, I am basically done with the hand since hes calling so wide etc
He fires 1025, I lol and raise to 2525, he folds, and I say "making all the right moves, eh"

The next hand, in a 5-6 way limped pot, he calls a flop bet with 98o on a T92 flop, then open shoves( for 5-6k at like 1k) on the A turn, lol donkaments. (note: acually raise pot, I opened QTo from EP and everyone calls. I cbet cos its live and i'm always ahead. turn i'm like wtf and always soul read him)

I then got dealt QQ and opened to 5x at 50/100 in the CO because I think he will call me super light regardless of my bet size, he folds, Andy calls in the BB after looking at me all confused (std, I look confused all the time but timex doesnt missclick open 5x here. should be a fold but I have a hadn that can own him)

Flop: 985dd, checked to me, I bet like 825, Andy raises to 3k with like 3 behind, I suck so I stick it in, I then monkey off all my chips to a guy who floated me with the intention of hitting, but never bluffing. (flop was hilarious cos I check he thinks and bets 825 and I snap raise a random number of chips that have me committed. Timex says he should fold here and i always start laughing again. he calls and I get tehre ldo with A2dd)

then the live pro guy plays like a complete tiltbox and I can see timex holding his mouth with his face all red which makes me laugh really hard. I'm suddenly considering if the others would think we're colluding or something stupid but it was honestly just too funny, plus I had just doubled through him in a spot that was clearly retarded if we were. Whatever Timex busts and I just sit around doing nothing. The live pro guy busts and new people come to the table.

So dude sits to my right and I like the way he stacks his chips. He's quiote talkative and I think hes likely to play pretty high online. Nothing really happens then he opens EP at whatever blinds, I think 200/400/25. Get a chip count, think for ages trying to get an accurate count and call with AQcc. bb decides to think for ages and calls. I reckon with total air trying to flop 2 pair and stack us. whatever.

Flop Qxx, both check to me, I'm sighing cos I think I should check here always but I'm bad at poker so I bet and pfr c/r AI and i'm terrible at poekr and call. He has KK but I turn an A and I have a lot of chips going into the break.
I really dont do anything and cant hit. I didnt see QQ+ once in prague. I'm nitting it like crazy and then the button opens at 300/600/75. I have 42o in the sb and decide
I can resteal with about 19k effective. I make it 3850 total. he calls. sigh. Flop T32r and I'm like, wow I hit yo. So I check, and he thinks for a while and shoves for 15k. I roll my eyes obv but I'm looking at him and he has his hand over his mouth and is crazy still. I ask for a count and I use a live tell that I wont post cos I swear its the absolute nuts and I'm gonna use it always, so i call and he has KQo. I fade and I'm the best poker player ever, and the rest of the table is all wtf??!!!

Basically nothing happens and I get to 800/1600 with still fucking 40k and I end up playing like a retard, manage to get QT in vs KQ without even putting the last aggression in and I'm out. I'm life tilted and everyone is out at different strip clubs so I get to hang out by myself till randallin comes back hammered out of his head at 5am and we go get spicy chicken sandwiches at the bistro place.

I'm back in london now for a few days. Went to a dinner party last night even though I was so tired. Apparently I have to help a friend go dress shopping on tuesday. fun times.

I really want to go to upstate NY to meet up with EMC on the 20th, but its a struggle to get flights from JFK to ROC at the right time. I may end up getting into JFK then staying 1 night in a hotel near the airport, then flying the next day to ROC. I'll book later, plus I need some sushi in a moment (im hooked). Then I'm meeting up with fslexduck on and flying to vegas for the msnl balla mansion NYE edition. Then I've planned to go pca. I'm staying with orange but hes decided to book 6th-11th or something, so I'm probably gonna crash with rupert and HIV for 2 days.

Sorry about the lack of updates, I might have pics if I can be botehred later but dont count on it.

Some time off again

2007-11-07T17:20:00.000Z

I've played zero hands in nov so far. Last month was solid, about 28k, still no big scores. Played 30k hands which were really forced, last two days I logged 12k hands just to spite complete a prop bet. Then the guy kept asking to see screenshots to prove I'd made it. wtf like I'd actually fake it, obv I completed legitimately. 12 tabling NL200 I pretty much broke even, such a waste of time.
Missed last sunday and pretty much done nothing all month. When I say nothing, I really mean nothing. I got scammed for 1k last month on the cake/party xfers which sucked, and also I had a mysteriously broken laptop.

So the plan this month is to play one sunday and around 10k hands before going to thailand with snowbank and a few others. I'm very very tempted to hit up macau for a 2.5k buyin donkament, and will probably stop in briefly in malaysia to say whats up to my dad.

I've got loads to sort out actually, the internets been really hit and miss last few days, and I'm gonna go get teh iphone once its out. As well as that theres obv the never ending battle to actually tidy my room. There's so much random stuff everywhere that its gotta be done.

I've got a busy schedule coming up, none of which i've booked any tickets for (hopefully tonight tho!)

15th nov - thailand. Sometime in between macau and malaysia.
4th dec: get back

20th dec: NY
22 (or 23rd?): NYC
NYE: vegas
jan 4th?: PCA

Doubt I'll bother playing the PCA, especially since I havent even bothered to play any satellites yet. Almost went to austrailia as mentioned in teh previous post, but to some extent I'm a little glad I didnt qualify. 20+hr flights are death.

I still plan on going to japan sometime, and I also wanna hit up paris and amsterdam again. I can't really think of many other places I really want to go at the moment, monte carlo, rome, and venice. Since I'm taking two years off school I should be able to see all these places. It's so ridiculous how many opportunities and options I have at 22yrs old with no degree (having tried going through the system too).
In the spring I'm gonna hit up disneyland orlando, cos I've really wanted to go after watching pirates of the carribean. No idea why, but I think it's gonna happen since me and my flatmates have been planning a daytona beach spring break trip (woohoo!).

Then obv vegas again for the summer, carrotsnake and I have discussed going earlier than last time, since we'll want to play a load of teh earlier small events. I'll probably be tehre 2 months, and then am about 90% that I'll be living in a poker house somewhere.

Final thoughts: total rome war is the most disgusting game ever. I've probably logged about 50 hrs into the game so far, and I hate myself for it. Once it's complete, I'm breaking the disc. It's an awesome concept but the game is just so repetative and lacks serious gameplay, so it get's boring fast. Unfortuanately I'm one of those people that has to complete everything, so I've gotta finish. I think I have maybe 15-20hrs of play left before I'm done.
This is why I don't really play video games, and hate myself every time I do play one.

Sundays. ugh.

2007-10-22T08:08:00.001Z

First I missclick enter the $535 assuie millions sat on ftp, so I have to sell 1/2 my action, have a massive chip stack the split AA AI pre vs QQ and then lose 44 vs AT AI pre 30bbs deep. lol gg. out 4th, for $750, top two get $18k packages

/life

Then cake poker decides not to let me log in, i find its cos this dude wanted me to xfer him monies, when really i didnt need cake money anyway. gg $33 for the 10k gtd which i couldnt play.

Sometime later I FT the 11k GTD on UB, but run 88 into AA 7 handed.

Next up, I bust 12th in the boss media 100k euro gtd, which sucked rediculously bad. I ran so bad near the end, never got any hands. sigh

Can't really complain about the 13.5k gtd that I got to the last 2 tabels on, just generally cold, thats ok, but sigh at blubbling the FTP 1mill gtd.

Started playing on this new site, which is so much fun. pkr.com. people are terrible, but now my eyes hurt cos its such an ugly interface and the stupid animation thing gets really old. I also feel like my poker thought process has jsut gone back 20 months. I'm gonna get some sleep now and hopefully take the whole of monday off. I need around 27k hands by the end of the month, I'm gonna try and do 4k on each day tues-friday which should mean I'm good to go.

I am really really rusty at NL 6-max right now, and need to get back into things.

So here we are

2007-10-20T19:14:00.000Z

Busted the GUKPT in pretty spectacular fashion, running a pretty bad bluff in a spot where at the time it made sense to me that villain would fold. oh well.

Today I'm gonna grind, maybe 3k hands. I haven't put in a session of NL 6-max in a while, but today the games look good and I wouldn't mind grinding out some low(ish) varaince $233/hr.

I'm hoping for around 15k more till the end of the month, and for the most part I'll grind the NL cash games, both 6-max and HU. I haven't managed to be in bed before 7am in a long time now, and I'd really like to be able to get back to a normal schedule. I almost thought I had with the GUKPT, but stuff happened and somehow I'm back on a bad schedule.

I've also realised that I've played just around 200k hands this year. This is pretty pathetic tbh. I know people who knock that out in 1-2 months. I mean wtf. At least total profit for the year is now clearly over $100k but I was really hoping for the 200k region. I still have just over 2 months left, so the target would be $15k more this month, and then two 30k months for nov and dec. I'd actually aim for more, but I'm gonna go to thailand for 3 weeks and then from around dec 20th I'll fly out to NYC and then LV for some debauchery. Hanging out with poker players is not only +EV, but also rediculous fun. It can be a bit costly, since they're all very good young internet players that have a lot of cash to burn, but it also means we can randomly go to good restaurants or do stuff like go to amsterdam on a whim that I don't usually get to do since my friends are all busto.

Speaking of friends, my housemate damien is getting into poker. He's currently grind NL25 after doing pretty badly at NL10. I'm not too fussed if he loses money, cos he's a really smart kid and long run he's just gonna rape these games. My incentive to make him good is so that he can pay for my PA.

I was looking at the iphone and ipod touch yesterday, and was really tempted by the ipod but I think i'll wait for the iphone. It's only 20more days or so till it comes out, and I cant be bothered to carry both an ipod touch and phone. My only thouight was that I've already got a contract with my current phone for something like 10 months, but I can jsut give the phone to my brother or something. I think I'll buy a dyson soon, they're suprisingly dear at £150-£250 on amazon. Not sure which one is gonna be best, I assume the lightweight one will be best overall for ease of use reasons.

Anyway I'm sure I'll be blogging again immediately after this when I go on some rediculous 20 BI downswing.

Mid month update

2007-10-16T03:21:00.000Z

Well I've barely played any poker, as per usual. I'm also stuck 4k in flipping, which is lots of fun (not).

I'm up about 4k in 2k hands of cash and 20k in all donkament stuff. Pretty solid for not doing that much I guess :D

Pretty disappointing sunday as I played ipoker for the first time. Came 18th in the 200k gtd when i lost AK vs KJ AI pre for the chip lead with 25ish left. That was SOOOOOOO annoying and sent me on lifetilt. I tilted in teh 10k gtd on cake and came 3rd when i had like 60% of the chips at one stage. I was just so tilted.

I've played around maybe 80 tourneys total this month, and FT'd 6 which is pretty hot.

Congrats also to my homeboy rupert, who's horse did extremely well in the sun mill.

Cash gamewise I've not played much 6-max. Mostly it's been mtts. Tomorrow is day 1a of the GUKPT ME leg 9 in the vic. I'll go play that if I can, gonna see if i can jsut turn up and register. I expect I can. I've learned so much about tournaments recently, this is really really gonna be sick. It's a £1k buyin which I'm probably just rolled for usually and I could easily get backing but I think it's a huge waste since my edge here is probably like a 300%+ ROI. Saying that I do still have to win crucial flips, as with any donkament

holla

2007-10-12T00:50:00.000Z

Looks like I'm going to thailand next month. Gonna book tickets soon, apparently i dont need a visa for less than 28 days.

Recently I've played a a few small donakments and done pretty well. I need to close one out for a 10k+ score soon, but I've been racking up the wins in teh small ones. I feel like I'm now playing the mid-late stages pretty well and close out all of them with a decent amount of clinicism.

I've also helped coach lior to a 10k score and orange to a 5k score. I just posted what i thin was a sick bit of thinking about poker, we'll see how it gets received. link

It's just something that I've been thinking about a lot recently because MTTs play so much shorter than its a lot better to be playing the unexploitable line as opposed to necessarily the optimal line, especially since they're so close so often.

I'm gonna play GUKPT if I can get to bed before 10am sometime soon. I've been waking up at like 8pm+ last week or so and I think it's terrible. Have to get back on track soon.

recent cashes: 2nd a 25k guaranteed for 8k and 1st in a 5k gtd for 1.4k. I've barely played like 100 donkaments this month, will have to play much more soon.

2007-09-28T19:28:00.000Z

I'll start off with the WSOPE. I didn't play this because I don't have enough money... whatever.

Was cool to meet a load of internet players whom I've heard a lot about. Name drops: timex, shaundeeb, gobboboy, actionjeff, skier, degen, adamfuckingjunglen, conner, brandon schaefer, rainkhan, leo, boostedj and probably a few more i forgot ( i reserve the right to edit later). Got to hang out with all of them at some point or other, some more than others.

Shaundeeb busted by losing two flips basically. Was annoying cos he was really looking good to go far. Said whats up to brian townsend. Not sure what he makes of me since he seems like a really serious kid, and he can tell im not (most of the time).

Went to amsterdam with shaundeeb which was pretty cool. Did virtually nothing tho. We were stoned out of our heads from about 2hrs into the trip until the very last day. I think we threw away maybe 1/4 of an ounce in the end. Good thing was, i learned how to roll joints. Met up with a 2p2er called heine who showd us around a bit, including what i assume was a big well known club but it freaked me out a little. imo it's probably like the dutch version of fabric, but in a weird country whilst being very stoned and it all being in a weird language.
On the 2nd night out there, we missclicked down the red light district, whihc was seriously unlike anything i could have really imagined. I'd heard about the window shopping before, and had my own idea of what it looked liked. I had no idea. The windows were all like small hotel rooms with bathrooms and sofas and stuff, and extremely hot girls. check out this link http://amsterdam-red-light-district.info/red-light-area-pictures.html for some good pics.
Most messed up thing was us ending up booking 3 sets of ticekts to fly back, since we we're basically too lazy :(

Then I played ept london, I sold 49% of myself and felt good about it, even after buying out of a $5k propbet that I would have won :(.
Problem was that i hadnt eaten that morning, and you know me, i like food yo. I'd also had less sleep than I'd hoped. I had gone to bed early, but I struggled to sleep the night before. I now feel like i'd have done better in my exams had i actually gone to sleep before them. I could tell at the table how unfocussed i was and I think it cost me. That and missing huge draws twice. I'm not sure what to think since I'm pretty aggro generally but I think maybe playing big pots 200bbs deep isnt necessarily the best way in these scenarios. I'm pretty used to the 6-max NLHE games where I'm happy to push really really hard, but in these fields i think i can tone down a little. My seat really really sucked too. I was sandwiched between the two other good/decent players at the table, both scandis. Had I sat across the table, I'd have been able to tear it up. Between the 3 of us we raised like 80%+ of hands and one of us was in 99%. I love that in a cash game but it's not the best in a donkament where I shouldnt necessarily be getting too wild.

sigh. Played a shitload of the wcoops and cashed in zero. Sigh, some have been bad, some have just been unlucky. I feel bad for my backers. I dont feel bad losing my own money, but i do feel bad losing other people's money? Sigh they have 100% makeup so they'll get it back someday anyway.

This month I've pretty much broke even. Cash was bad at the start of the month, and then I've played a load of donkaments that I've not done well in. I might be even in them though, since I run hot at the small turbos $60/45 and the $12/180 turbos. I've been playing a load of those in order to learn pushbotting and endgame for tournaments. I'm gonna get back to cash games again though, and will start playing a lot more NL1k since I think I'm overskilled for 2/4. I've actually done well in cash recently, only bad day was playing 5/10 HU on stars in amsterdam airport. We'd broken a guy down to $200 and then in 30 mins without reloaded he had 4k. gg yo

I think the biggest thing this month is that I've learned so much, especially about tournaments from shaundeeb. I've also learned a shitload about cashgames, although thats been rather indirect mostly. To use an analogy, I feel like I've just completely dissected my golfswing, and once I get some practice in and start to 'feel it' I'm gonna just rape every table I play.

I think I'll play some of the events on the GUKPT or whatever its called. I've been thinking a lot about poker sponsorship deals, and I'm gonna go ahead and get one. The only way though is to get known for winning live donkaments. Sites cant really market some random kid who tears up online games, but they can market new young kids who seem to dominate every table
they sit at. I watched some kenny tran and talked to people that played him. Apparently he's just sick, and I kinda want that rep. As someones whos played 95% of his poker in shorthanded nl cash games online, I have one gear: lagtard. I need to learn new gears and be constantly changing. This is something I've learned from shaundeeb. I've been thinking about the image I want to project at a table and how to take advantage. So far all i have is: 'this kid is fucking insane' which works well for me, but I do need other gears for different scenarios, especially in donkaments where blind structure and stack sizes can very seriously limit my freedom to take certain lines or even play certain hands.
I listened intently about greg raymer and his table presence/image. People are just scared of him. He's a world champ and probably one of the best there's ever been. His knowledge and understanding of live players is jsut sick. It's like negreanu or hellmuth, I think that if they played with me they'd get destroyed but their understanding of live plauyers, tendencies and espcially the psycology of the donks is something that will take me years to learn. I think eventually I want a greg raymer style image at a table where bascially everyone shits themselves. Right now I dont think I can get that untill i win something/or a few things because I look so young, have multicoloured hair and wear bright hoodies. If I dyed my hair black again and then wore suits or polo necks my image instantly changes. Lol now I'm even looking into detail about appearance... but I think its allrelevant (wow this is a long ramble). You can dominate tables just by talking. I've seen this before and its not a weapon I have, but I've definitely seen people just own tables by talking. It's sick. There's so much I have to change for live donkaments that are unnecessary online.

Online I learn how to play good and dominate, and play i know that he knows that i know that he knows i know games with people. For live scenarios I guess I'm just gonna have to learn the other things by trial and error (which may mean lots more live donkmanets).

untill next time.

p.s. I will add people onto my blogroll, but im lazy so it takes a while. Also to the dude that asked if i've made a mill, no thats not me.

lots of stuff

2007-09-25T22:29:00.000Z

im gonna get back to blogging properly again. stuff that i'm gonna cover:

wsope
mtts
amsterdam
my finances

tomorrow however, i'll be playing EPT london 1b so gogoogogogo

Running Kinda cold

2007-08-29T21:34:00.000Z

That was yesterday. Man that hurt cos I was srsly releveling everyone. fav 2 hands of the day:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1424167
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1424297

pretty much how i ran, did a quick 500 hands this morning and was +$2 (lol?) after losing every flip. At the end of the session i was up $2k, but then got badly coolered. oh well, i guess +$800 being a bad day is ok by me.

day before i was +$3k in 1k hands, playing a huge fish. he shoved $1.5k deep into a 653cc board, i snap call JJ ldo, what can he had? 59o and board comes 6 9. river was 9c i was actually pretty scared he had a FD cos thats how he'd been playing.

bah, im close on 40k for the month, like $38k. annoying i didnt do better in the GSOP ME, cos i could have broken 50k for the month. the one big hand that i played and talked to gaucho about when i 4-bet and got shoved on, i really think i had to call. sigh. i hactually 4-bet intending to call teh shove, but when i count ed my chips i had slight more than i thought. i tanked like crazy and at one point jamie whispers 'i hope u have KK' which almost made me laugh, cos i was very very serious with my... AJs. I folded and hear villain had 75s, which makes total sense and was definitely my main thought ( i guess it has to be if u tank AJs for 60bbs+ in a donkmanet).

tbh it was great experience, and i was glad to get it in before i did any real donkaments. It was a £550 event, and I honestly think I was in a completely different level to almost everyone. There were only a couple who I thought were any good. First table i had on day one, some dude (cant remember his name) sat behind me. People seemed to recognise him and they talked about him playing 'on the circuit'. Obv I just played every hand and he tried to outplay me every hand. He ended up getting buttraped. The whole table did. Because i was opening light, their expert stratergy was to call me oop preflop and try to outplay me psotflop. lol. One dude i recognise as a gutahot regular, jaz i think, got really pissed at me for 3-betting him with A7s. heh. I just leveled the whole table, i was in seat 1, and the people in direct eye line with me were all visably tilting the whole day.

How do you handle a multicoloured haired azn kid, who barely looks 18 but seems to be able to buy into £500 events and play extremely reckelss? call ldo, and hit a flop. props to teh guy that busted me, the only person I played who had any clue how to handle me, although theres no way he can do anything vs me if our seats are reversed.

i wont do $50k now, although i might do a donkament day online and play a shitlaod of $50-$109 MTTs and hope for a score, although i think maybe not since it just kills my hrly and doesnt really do anything apart from give me short term variance. Hell even teh GSOP was a waste of time in the long term, i guess i was just playing for 'fun', although I havent considered the live poker experience that I gained from it. I'd never played a live donkament over £60 so it was defintiely a good learning experience for me. Not sure I'll ever be a big donkament player, since you have to keep a schedule and cant leave midway through etc. Plus I'm getting sick good at NL 6-max, like really good. I definitely think I can be a big winner at NL2k within 6months to a year. i figure 3PTBB = $120/100, but 6 tabling (i assume id play less cos theres less games, although i can mix more from nl1k ldo) at just over 400 hands/hr = 480/hr? thats pretty sick and i think my figs are conservative although the games can defiitely change in the next few months. we'll see

my latest cardrunners video is out. third one so far now, i think they've got better as i've gone along productionwise. i play some intersting pots, although i also play some really bad imo.

also shoutout http://newpokerblogunl.blogspot.com/. dude update more. I randomly staked this guy, and hes already doubled from $500 to $1k playing a good volume of hands and working hard.

back to the blogging

2007-08-19T04:14:00.000Z

My bad. I'd like to say I've been busy, but not really. Same as usual I guess. I've not really played much, just over 10k hands this month, which is extremely low volume for me. Running at over $1/hand is hot tho, and obv lol_donkaments.

Since i've been back, my hair has turned blue. I haven't done any exercise and I'm contemplating how to withdraw my monies online (as well as where to put it).

I also feel like I'm a much better poker player now than i was even a couple of weeks ago. After watching a lot of carrotsnake, doing a lot of thinking etc I'm now thinking about hands a lot differently. Mixing it up and playing a 4-6 tables for some of my session helps too. Really helps focus on ranges. In the past i thought it wasnt a good idea, but at this stage of my development skillwise I think its important. Thats not saying that 8-tabling was a waste. I really think for the low limits so little thought has to be given in almost all hands, that one should really learn to play abc really well just by logging lots of volume. It's really important to learn to multitable well.

I had really bad news with my degree, not passing and obv no more resits so i dont have anything to show... but then also had my hottest week ever winning 21k in a donkament then having a 6k day yesterday.

Current goal is to be +$10k in the next 12 days or so. Not sure exactly how its gonna go down, but im very determined. Tomorrow is the FTOPS ME so I'll play that, and the mansion guaranteed, as well as a few otehr small donkaments. Thurs is the GSOP ME, although i might pop down for one of the earlier ones and check out whats going on. I figure if i play 20k hands and run good - hot, I'll be good for my goals.

uh oh

2007-08-13T04:28:00.001Z

ship it dont wreck it, ldo

Been back a week now...

2007-08-03T08:33:00.000Z

... and done virtually nothing.

Tonights the first night that i havent been out since getting back, and decided to get play medded up.

ballin. took ages tho, cos i was playing 2-6 tables

played pretty well, made one bad call, in a ratehr marginal spot, and then folded in a hand where i really didnt want to, then ldo someone calls a $200 bet into a $600 pot and wins with a worse hand. wp me.

for some reason nothing ran right at NL600, like a couple of days ago, yet ran good elsewhere. NL1k seemed rather soft, and I felt like I just took advantage of soft games. Never really got any set up spots, but blah, happens

the new timx?

2007-07-25T18:40:00.001Z

im breakeven now, +$4.5k last 3 days and i havent even played. I've just backed people and been hot doing it.

These posts are so bitty, but I'll eventually write a full post once i get back to the UK. Today is my last full day in america, so I guess I'm gonna get drunk

Welcome to Atlanta where the players play...

2007-07-22T15:31:00.000Z

so vegas was fun. I played a session at NL1k at the mgm where i ran crazy hot and was +$4k in about 4hrs. holla?

Back in atlanta now, just chillin'. Some funny stuff happened on teh way back, such as carrotsnake getting pulled over for going 87 in a 65 zone. I'll write a full report later, all i wanted to post right now was that i just played NL2k on stars with daniel negreanu. funny ass shizzle, as the people in IRC were going nuts. I was up a whole $67 cos i steal the blinds like a pro, ldo. Unfortuanately I had to sell 50% cos i really shouldnt play NL2k. :(

Oh noes! they be splitting my profits. who cares im up a decent amount backing today, even if my horse in the stars mill and mansion 100k didnt do well. nvm, always next time.

It's Hot Outside

2007-07-10T03:52:00.000Z

I've been reliably informed that this summer has been the hottest in a while in vegas, and this place is the deasert YO!

So much stuff has happened, there's no way I can even recollect it all.

We'll go straight to the moneyh situation tho.

For the trip:

$1k flights
$1k rent
$1k general spending
$2k flipping
$1k backing in WSOP ME
$1k WSOP non-qualifying
$1k online
$1k laptop (doesnt really count i guess)

so yah thats about it. I've won some live, but thats been going straight back into strippers purses.

I'm stuck $8k for the trip, but I've now decided that I'm gonna start grinding, hard. I hate the mental spot, trying to catch up monies tho. Whatever I'm gonna aim to get most of this back grinding online from now till I leave america, and then definitely going for over 100k hands online in august. I'd like to book a couple of $20k+ months to make me feel a bit happier about things.

State Side YO!

2007-06-17T03:57:00.001Z

Currently posting from new mexico, i'm on the road with carrotsnake to vegas from atlanta.

ive been enjoying my time so far. dont have time to make a long post, but i will either tomorrow or later in the week

Hmm...

2007-06-06T02:00:00.000Z

Another donkament day today. Just way too tired to play normal games. I'll be back on MSNL tomorrow

I kinda did it properly, but didnt really know how till till mid way through. I basically played a couple too many tables, and was like 14 tabling at one stage, which is really hard to manage when you have teh crypto, mansion and cakepoekr tables up as they are all unresizable.

The largest I played was teh $100k on mansion, where I cant really remember what happened but it was probably me pulling a move in a good spot and busting cos teh villain called light (again). I think I'll have to stpo playing the $100+ buyin events, cos I'm really not sure I'm good for it.

Played a load of random crap, a few $11 - $22 donkaments , a few small rebuys, like $3, $5, and $10, as well as some satellites. hell, i even played a doubleshootout donkament for a WSOP ME qualifier seat, which i felt i was unlucky to lose.

I found it tough tho, play a bunch load of tables, and not remembering which table was for what. They we're mostly all at the same stages, so it was ok, but for example int e $10+1 rebuy I actually had no idea it was a rebuy untill 25mins in, by which time I'd tripled ldo.

I only cashed in two, which I think is a little disappointing, since I played reasonably well. I FT'd the $5+1 rebuy on party, bu bustoed first in a manner which was a little disappointing. I was in a spot where the villain had played retardedly, but i shoved anyway cos i had a reasonable equity hand and tehre was craploads of dead money in the pot. I played really well from the last 6 tables in or so, but just ran crazy cold from about 2 tables in, and couldn't do anything.

I missed in all satellites, busting in good spots, with reasonable chip stacks. However in one of the 180 man SnGs on stars... I DID WIN. WOOT!

Technically not a donkament, but close enough I think. $1080 for first, and the FT on party was $140. Spent jsut about $420 total, if my math is right. I still dont like the mansion $100k, but I just cant seem to find a way to not play it when i happen to see it running (by which I see its starting soon when i'm ready to donkament it up).

+$800 today, and I'm actually rather happy with it. Yesterday I was +$1k, but in 7.7k hands so I was crazy pissed. This month is kinda going ok, but I feel like I've been ratehr close in some spots, and donkaments have been expensive timewise. I probably need to watch some videos to get better, but I find them so boring already. In total this session was about 7hrs straight, and before when I'd played it was around 4hrs.

Crazy excited about vegas right now, cant wait to get out there. I'd better get round to finishing all my errands that I need to get done before it!

<3 my ROI

fucking donkaments

2007-06-04T01:18:00.000Z

-$1k today. just bustoed a $3k guaranteed with 38 people left cos i was on tilt and couldnt be fucked to play anymore.

fuck donkaments

Glad May is over

2007-06-03T02:47:00.000Z

May was pretty bad, ran bad all month really.
Ended on 47k hands, for $13k monies. +$1k in bonni and another $1k in rb.

I dropped $215 in the stars million, and then $222 to grandmelon on 2p2 for losing a prop bet. lawl.

Usually there's a graph, but I cant be bothered right now. June is hawt so far, wasn't really intending to play, but the games have been good. +$4.5k in 5k hands so far. I've run both hot and cold, but mostly a little hot i guess. I also tried shortstacking a little at NL200 tonight. Man, it's way more work than you'd think. Constantly ratholing, and stuff, and when you do double, you have an interesting spot where its unclear wtf you should do.
My personal line so far has been double, reload full, wait for blinds, rathole. I'm just doing it to mess around, I think that I'm at a stage in my poker development where I might become a really good player. So far I would say that I'm just 'more than averagely competant', but definitely could be WAY better.

I'm gonna robusto through some WSOP ME satellites. If anyone knows of ANY WSOP ME freerolls, pls tell me. I'm down to play any of them. I'm gonna be a little bit of a whore at them, trying to qualify. I'm probably also gonna play a load of sub sats, and small donkaments to try and robusto some monies, since $650 a pop is kinda expensive i guess. I wanna keep it as separate as possible from the main poker monies. I'll still be playing MSNL during the peak times tho, and need just about 8k more hands to become a deuces member on party, which is worth a lot of monies to me.

anyway its like 4.20am, gotta go to bed.

holla

cardrunners guest pro

2007-05-29T14:32:00.000Z

what it do. I'm now a cardrunners guest pro, and I'll be doing some MSNL vids soon.

woot woot

2007-05-28T14:24:00.001Z

I've been enjoying poker a little more. It's just because I've really been thinking a little bit more about my decisions, rather than autopiloting it. Played some 10/20 without much happening, and some 5/10 actually. However it's gonna have to be better game selection, and maybe only playing 4 tables cos I feel that the tables are a little harder (ldo).

Last night I was up till really early in the morning, sweating skeg_vegas in a few, including FTing and then taking a bad in the sunday mullingan. Simultaneously I sweated carrotsnake in teh $650 WSOP qualifier on stars. He managed to get a seat, so our SSNL balla mansion now has WSOP ME event representation!

I'll take today off, with the intention of hopefully going to bed early. I might do some small donkaments, maybe a small rebuy or two. Not sure. I have been putting in relatively ok volume recently, 3-4k hands per day. I hope to get in about 8k more hands this month, and hit 50k total (i'm on 44k right now).

NL200 has been hilarious. I'm currently nursing a 14 buyin downswing at it, which is definitely my biggest downswing ever. This week i've taken a 10 stack downswing at NL200, then 2 days later 10 stack downswing at NL400. Not the most fun.

I've got a lot of stuff to sort out before going to america, in fact I have to book tickets. I think I'll fly out the 10th or 11th. May even go business class, since I'm such a balla. I think it's only £500 more. I got a lot of crap to sort out before I go, buying a laptop, sorting out my debit card (which expires 1/2 way through me being in vegas) blah blah blah.

Anyway, my next update will be an end of month I round up I guess. The month hasn't gone the greatest, having had a really poor start. Also 50k hands is about half of what i was wanting, so whatever.

ship it, don't wreck it

2007-05-14T21:38:00.000Z

That's my month so far, i've finally got on a small run, we'll see how that goes. This month's been a bit sick in terms of the swings. I'm brushing it off with suprising ease actually, but I would like to run a little hot. I'm mostly playing NL400- NL1000. I've done some at NL200, but only when I've been feeling a tired.

Tomorrow I'm going to True's house from 2p2. I guess we'll just hit some golfballs and stuff, and play some poker. He's a very good MSNL/HSNL player, whom I play a completely different style to but is defintiely someone I learn things from.

I'm gonna be in vegas this summer, as most of you know. I'm not sure exactly the situation with my passport however. It's not machine readable, so i'm not sure what I should do with regards to visas/getting the passport updated.

I've got two vids up here. That's the thread on 2p2, where I've posted the links. Any questions post there, or ask here I guess. Some interesting spots came up, and I think they'd be useful for SSNL/ micro players. Also you get to see what kind of 3-betting range I'd consider normal. It's intended to put pressure on people opening light, but it's not crazy wide. It's tough to play against, and definitely something an SSNL/uNL guy should be thinking about.

I think that I'm also gonna sit down and write my first proper poker article soon. I've never really written one, but I think I will now, so that I can start submitting stuff to people to help me get paid or get 'featured'.

hmm

2007-05-10T00:00:00.000Z

I seem to have left my luckbox somewhere. This was yesterday, and i've taken today off just cos i wasnt feeling right. My W$SD is pretty poor, and AA,KK, JJ have combined for -$1k so far this month, which is fun. I'm not too unhappy, cos that looks like pretty solid short term variance and i feel like i've been playing relatively well.

This came today:

ballin

Back

2007-05-08T11:20:00.000Z

I've finished all my exams, which I really don't want to contemplate. My goal now is to hit 80k+ hands, hopefully break 100k for the month of may. Gonna be a challenge since I did 4k hands in the first week (last exam was on the 4th). The above is my graph for the month so far. I thought it was funny.

I'm considering structuring a general daily timetable for myself. Something along the lines of:

wake up before 12pm
lunch. go to gym at 2pm
back 3pm
start playing 4pm
break 6pm
eat.
play 8pm-10pm
15-30mins break
play till 12-1am, depending on tiredness

assuming i get in the region of700 hands/hr (i'm not toally sure, cant be bothered to check PT) i should be able to log in the region of 4k hands/day. with 23 days left in the month, thats fine. As the end of the month draws closer, I will either step up the hours, or 12-table NL200.

My goal is to hit a minimum of $20k before rb + bonii. I would like $25k, and ideally break $30k, but we'll see how feasible that is.

I haven't really scheduled much time for 'poker study', but I surf 2p2 strat threads often, and I'm often critiquing my own play and thinking about hands afterwards anyways.

I think I'll put out a video sometime, when I get a chance, maybe of NL200

Exams

2007-04-20T17:09:00.000Z

First one is soon, and i've done next to no revision. Not much else to post right now.

I have c&c 3 which is ok, i hate the hotkeys. I havent played any poker recently and am actually really looking forward to a massive may. right off to tescos, then gonna start studying like crazy.

random update

2007-04-16T21:01:00.000Z

the forum i used to read about 4 yrs ago to do with yuri's revenge is hilarious

poker is fun

2007-04-07T01:16:00.000Z

for everyone, apart from me cos i havent play much.

2k hands or so, $1.5k monies this month. I really dont think i'll play much more this month, I'm gonna knuckle down and revise. Currently jsut enjoying the sun and stuff. I think i'm about to do some internet shopping for clothes, then tidy my room and start moving stuff onto the new hard drive i bought.

thats about it, nothing new to post about. I realise its actually been a long while since i posted about poker, or any HHs, but thats really because a lot of it is merging together in my head and i'm not really thinking about individual hands especially hard anymore. My thinking is more along the lines of image, and general flow, and history.
This is how I've been playing poker, which is a completely different way to how i was thinking about it ages ago. Obv I'm also thinking about the actual hand in progress, and the actual hand strength i have, but my reaction to my opponents actions are now dictated more by the things i mentioned to some extent, because how to actually play a hand for its immediate strength is something that has started to come automatically to me now.

I actually have a pretty strong deisre to play, but I am not allowing myself to, as I have exams to pass.

March Round Up

2007-04-01T00:45:00.000Z

Kinda disappointing. I started really well, took 14 days off then couldn't get started. I now regret my break in between, as I've lost motivation to play. I'm playing ok at NL600 and above, just not running very well.

Yesterday was -$9 or so at donkaments. I'm up around $450 in bonuses thanks to party, and $1k in rb. Add $500 W$ and I'm up around $13k this month. BR wise i'm at whatever, I'm planning to withdraw all i have online down to $30k and consider that my BR. I'm just gonna bounce around 1/2 to 5/10 depending, but mostly play 2/4 and 3/6, whilst also dropping to 1/2 when i'm not feeling great or when there just arent enough games running, like in the mornings.
My last 14k hands or so have been kinda whatever, probably running a B/C game for the most part in all honesty with the occasional terrible hand. Meh, we all have them.

Anyway we've holla'd at one house for the SSNL mansion, check it out Las Vegas Home - Villa.
We'll be going late june for 1 month. We've booked it, but if something better appears in the next couple of days we can still change our mind.

Internetwise this thread is awesome.

In real life, I've played less AOE3 thankfully, but I've managed to do a rubik's cube in 1min 50. I'm gonna learn some dope algorithms so that I can break 60secs. My exam schedule is in, and I'm up on the 26th, 2nd a 4th. Should be fun. Aim is play around 20k hands for April so taht I can revise mad good, then plug away for 100k hands in May. I'll probably start doing 6-8k hands a day, which is obv pretty awesome.

In response to the comments that i can remmeber.
paul, i'll cahnge the blog link whenever i can be assed.
some otehr dude asked for a link on the side. i dont mind, but i'm not linking blondepoker cos i never read it. i dont even link 2p2 and i spend a crapload of time on that.
some dude asked for a pic of my setup, erm read the archives i have a pic somewhere, january probably. the software for graphing is poker grapher. cant remember the rest. post more questions and comments, they may get answered before christmas :D

I'm out for now. Holla

O RLY?

2007-03-26T16:27:00.000Z

YA RLY!

i'm running cold yo. thurs/friday i played 8.5k hands and -$1.1k, at one stage being way into -$3k.

I was playing everything from NL100 -NL1000 so i guess it's not too much of a prob. Overall I ran really cold, then really hot. I ran a couple of awesome bluffs, but got pozzed, like firing 3 shots at NL600 for full stacks, only for 66 to call on a 98397 board. LOL

he put me on AK yo! i had KQ :(

Anyway. So I stopped playing. I think in the future I have to learn to just power through the times when i'm running bad, because I did also spew chips in randomly bad spots. I think I might close the month out playing NL200 mostly, since the games are really soft on the whole. I'm kinda pissed at myself for taking 11 days off, since it's put me in a bad spot for the month. I'm gonna need to make another $4k at least for me to feel happy with the month AND I'm still taking today off since I had like 6hrs sleep. I did do a 3x3x3 rubik's cube tho

Right now its 5.30pm and the sun is shining (lol daylight saving!). My room is a complete mess, and I'm really really hungry. I need to go buy some food. I've been playing a shitload of AoE3 and am now pretty bored of it. I'm gonna stop. Plan for today is do some washing up, laundry, sweep my room, watch some CR vids and just generally refocus.
I've got a few things to sort out, for the rest of the week:

collect exam timetable
sort out delivery of my subwoofer
sort out my credit card (complicated spot, not to do with spending any monies tho)
go to uni to claim £600 back
call party/nationwide. I transferred $6k from party --> nationwide (i.e. bank transfer) about 2 weeks ago and it still hasnt hit. i'm getting pissed at that
lol donkaments
gym
download music
haircut (i dont think i'll recolour just yet, probably do it next time)

holla

back to the grind

2007-03-22T22:04:00.000Z

Today was my first proper session back, -$600 in about 2.5k hands. That was ok tho, as i was stuck $2k at one point.

I played ok, only played 1 hand totally horrendously. still kicking myself about it.
I'm gonna miss the jman tourney tonight, cos i'm waiting on some speakers to be delivered, and have to be from 9am till whenever. Plan is to wake up around 8am. Go to tescos, stockup and hit big ass sessions, with maybe 1hr breaks in between. Probably play mostly NL200 during the day.

I am crazy lazy

2007-03-18T16:55:00.000Z

Virtually no play since my last post. Practically speaking, taking 9 days off, since i have a test on tuesday. variance, I havent done any revision.

Taking time off from poker is good, but i still think about it and constantly rethink new lines and new scenarios. I think my math is a bit weak, not in terms of the normal crap, but learning percentages given pokerstoave ranges and weighting hands and calc FE. This is something I've generally just been taking educated guesses at (i'm mostly pretty accurate), but I could probably fine tune 0.5PTBB/100 out f myself if i could do this better.

I went on a binge, and bought ages of empires 3 and some books from amazon. I'll start playing that since I have a dope ass computer, which i dont take advantage of. I just watched 300, and also I've been watching Rome a lot, so battles are kinda intriguing me. I watched the 3rd LoTR film again yesterday just to watch all the battles.

I just bought a new subwoofer and speakers for the computer for £100, and also a new 500gb external HD, cos i dload so much BS. To top off my spending spree, I think I'm gonna buy some turntables and try DJing. LAWL. Well, it's kinda expensive but if I played poker right now, I'd probably blow the money. I might as well spend it on something that I have a chance at actually enjoying. I think it'd be something theraputic to do. Poker is fine, but its kinda stressful. I need something else to do that I do just for pleasure. Odds are I'm gonna be sick good, since its something I would actually be able to do without leaving my bedroom (holla?)
I think I'll spend up to £400-£500 on decks + mixer, and then probably a shedload on records.
Either way, it's probably cheaper than the amount i'd lose if i tried playing right now.

Anyway, back to cleaning my room. It's crazy how into it i can be when I have studying to do.

lol documents

2007-03-12T20:51:00.000Z

stars mill -$215
mansion $100k -$100
party $15k -$55
party $8 - $24 ($6 rebuy)
crypto $1500 - $11

failed in all apart from 2nd in the crypto $1500 for $392 to breakeven for the day. great

i was -$13 total, so ended up flipping with people 4 times to get back to even, the last being $112 flip with kolotoure, which lead him on a downward spiral to flip for $500 and lose. He was stcuk $1k in flips, which i feel bad for since he plays NL100.

Anyway I have to log these cos i'll forget by the end of the month. I've started a donkmanet roll of $1k so that I have something to work with, otherwise I'll just spew chips endlessly. I can play up to $55 buyins i think, since I'm not really skileld for $100+ buyin donkaments. For example I felt really lsot a few times in the stars mill, even though my homeboy rupert said I just had really awkward hands. I dunno, mansion $100k was ok, but I didn't feel comfortable and $15k on party was bad. In the $6 rebuy I played good actually, but went out early after teh end of the rebuy period losing 62 on Q62. QT is obv too good a hand to fold about 130bbs deep. Nevermind.

If i play more, I think it'll be $6 rebuys like the party one, and some $3 rebuy WSOP sub sats since I don't seen to mind those. I'll probably play the 20/180's on stars and the crypto guaranteeds. Right now I think I need to up my skill level at donkaments before going back to the big buyins.

Today I've now had two starbucks coffee's including one where i mixed it with some baileys. It's made me feel a little sick. Exams are coming soon, so I'm gonna have to get my study on and probably wont play more than 20k hands during april. I've taken today off, and probably will take tomorrow off. Maybe even wednesday too. I need to refocus on stuff and sort some things out.

My lifestyle sucks

2007-03-10T04:09:00.000Z

I need to go to the gym and generally do other healthy things. I'm putting on weight playing poker, and it's not really due to what i eat, more to do with my lack of excercise...
saying that, $2.5k day. holla

I'm playing a lot of hands for some reason, although not ALL at 2/4 like i'd hope. sometimes the games just look bad and i dont want to play, but do. I've played about 2k hands at NL100 this month, which is a waste of time. I thought it'd be a destresser but really i just stress out more.
up $8.5k for the month and i just bought into the sunday million on a whim even though i suck at donkaments but because I run HAWT.

I like the fact that a few people that I know in real life read this blog, even though some of it is just poker jargon or 2p2 (twoplustwo.com) slang and probably sounds like complete nonsense to a normal person.

play more hands pls

2007-03-07T12:07:00.000Z

I have had a great start to the month actually, yet for some reason i cant log any hands. i think last month burt me out.

historically I've struggled to log many hands at the start of the month, probably because of my nature of waiting to the last minute to do things. Thus I wait till halfway through the month to start logging hands.

One thing that worries me is that I am running insanely hot, but i guess that's out of my hands.

My current goals are to go to the bank and sort out my credit card, which is kinda complicated but basically i moved house and forgot about changing address. Now it expired and I have no idea whats going on. I don't think anyone would have used to new card since it gets delivered to my old halls of residence where the policy is to send back mail to the sender and i'm pretty trusting.
I also wanna get to the gym. here's hoping

Not really sure why

2007-03-03T14:48:00.000Z

but I felt obliged to post. No much has happened. 2paul2 defaulted on his 30k hands through unfortuanate circumstances, so +$200 for me. holla

I've actually done quite a few hrs of coaching recently and they've gone pretty good, although one dude got sick coolered (and one failed 3 barrel) resulted in him dropping 3.5 stacks which was a little gay. I think he learned a bit tho so that's cool.

Yesterday I won a sub satellite for a $650 seat for a wsop qualifier from a $3 rebuy, but was bored senseless.
So my homeboy rupert said 'lets do some flips for $5', so i was like 'ya ok'

i got owned, and have a crazy high lose-rate

man, its 3.20pm, and i havent even had breakfast

SO i'm done for the month

2007-02-27T21:47:00.000Z

over yo.

+$200 on another database
+$570 from poker bonii
+$900ish from rb
-£30 live donk and go (lol)

so thats just under $12k. i'll play some donkaments tomorrow i think, so we'll see how that goes.

BR at $32k. i guess i shoudl play more 2/4

that was bad

2007-02-26T13:18:00.000Z

very bad

actually, terrible

Real WorLD m0nEY FeELs Different

2007-02-19T00:18:00.000Z

to poker money.

Real world money means something. £10 buys a lot of stuff. I don't really WANT to pay £50 for a duvet. Online I tilt shove $400 pre with zero fold equity (done that twice at 400, and maybe twice times at 200 this month)

In the real world, paying £500/month in rent for a room in a flat where theres no space for a living room sucks. Online I'll take $1.3k to the highest limit i can, and shove AQ pre and lose to JJ (not the worst spot, but still not the smartest thing to do)

In the real world, spending £8 for a taxi when i can just walk sucks. Online i call $50 river bets because, well i just think i have to.

Right now I'm just donking around on a table with EMCwilliams at NL50. If i blow it, oh well. In the real world, thats just £25 down teh drain. in fact as i type this, i'm down $60. I kinda dont care eitehr way, but maybe i should since £30 is grocery shopping for a week, or two (who knows).

Wow the above is bad, kinda just ramblings. So over the weekend i'm up some moneies, over like 8k hands, in which time i took two 5 stack 'downswings'. Not the worst, not the best but whatever I'll live with it. I'm doing well this month, even though i dont think i'm playing fantastically well. I'm at 32k hands, so only 8k more. Tomorrow I'll do at elast 2k hands, hopefully more but damien has a play or soemthing so i might end up checking that out since there's meant to be lots of hot girls.

here are a couple of pics:

my new floors. they look pretty dope

and my new mouse setup. the mousepad is awesome

Just A Quickie

2007-02-16T22:29:00.000Z

Not much to say. I've been playing really badly of late, and have easily cost myself $2k this month in pure tiltyness.

I'm at $5k for the month after bonuses (but before rb), so things are ok. I've played 22k hands, and am kinda still on target for 40k. I'm not gonna say i'm playing X amount of hands this weekend or this week, or next week because I keep missing my deadlines, but rest assumred 40k hnads this month is gnna be a minimum. I'm actually considering how to break 50k hands, as that would feel really awesome.

Yesterday I spent the whole day with francesca at ikea buying furniture and stuff. I was surprised and impressed with the thought and layout of the whole ooperation. From the free bus shuttle, to the kids area, to the cafe to the method of purchase, i.e. look via the showroom and then buy from the wharehouse section.

The stuff got delivered today Damien and I have just set up my sofa (it's sort of a futon style thing, but instead of a matteress it has cushions. I have a book case to setup too, but i guess i can do that myself sometime soon.
I'm off to put the covers on the cushions now, ready for our flat's current obsession: the amazing race (we've done seasons 1 and 10, currently watching 2)

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

2007-02-09T01:15:00.000Z

I'm actually, weirdly on tilt right now. Just dropped 2 stacks at stars NL100, whilst trying out the software. I really hate losing monies.

I've done 11k hands this month so far, and am +$1.8k from play, and around $450 from poker bonuses that I actually didnt know were coming, ty party.

This isn't bad since, i was -$2.5k after my first 2k hands. I have to hit 40k this month, or else i'm out $6k in prop bets. That would suck. My money target is $10k-$15k, but as long as i can play my A or B game most of the time, this will come easy. If fact, I feel like I've been on my A game for teh past few days actually.

I've been playing a lot at 1/2 just because I'm really tearing the games up and am feeling that there's a lot less variance than 2/4. I will however be playing more 2/4, but i think something liek 10k hands at 2/4 this month is most likely. Next week, I'm hoping for a 20k hand week. This will be hard, but it's reading week so HOLLA.

If he wants it, I'll be taking on 'yorkshirepudding' (check the blogs on left) as a student, and all he has to do is play 5k hands/week and pay me the rakeback that he makes. I've read his blog for a while and he seems pretty determined to win mad monies. I also sympathise with his situation, where poker income would actually have a decent impact on his lifestyle.
However, I've noticed his play is a bit 'meh', so I'll be trying to coach him, and make him beat at least NL100.
I'm actually charging people $50/hr for coaching right now, which I feel is a pretty reasonable rate, and my 'students' (lol i have students) have actually been giving goot feedback.

My floors are looking good right now, I'll have a pic of my room soon. My flatmates' rooms are getting fisnisehd tomorrow and saturday, after which our flat will be finished. I can't wait.

Anyway I got class tomorrow at 9am. Fun times.

Febuary, HOw you loath me

2007-02-02T00:54:00.000Z

Bring on march pls.

So not the greatest start to the month, didn't play great, but didn't play totally crazy.

Gonna be back to the grind tomorrow. I'll take a lesson with clayton again. Last month I had one with bobbofritos. Was interesring enough that i'll have more for the time being.

Last month:

about $400 from rb and bonuses i think.

lost $1260 going busto on FTP, and add $500 from other computer. note i lost monies at some ££ tables too.

i'm -$300 online on someone else's laptop, but +300 euros at live poker.

+$5800ish for the month, but a little disappointing as I wanted to be around $8k, and obv i shouldnt have been at 10/20.

So i got to around $24.8k . I think I'll be down to a $20k roll again, after withdrawals. I guess I'm actually at around $18.3k right now, since I just dropped a bit today.

I went to dublin, here's the trip report

In real life, my floors are getting varnished on monday. This is annoying as I have to do a test on monday, homework for monday, and also have lots of money on the line in prop bets where I have to hit 40k hands for the month or else i'll be out like $6k.

Ok, class is at 9am tomorrow, I'm out

grpah for the month, including losing at 10/20

2007-01-26T12:47:00.000Z

just lost teh biggest pot of my life

2007-01-26T11:32:00.001Z

FullTiltPoker Game #1675655747: Table Mardi Gras (6 max) - $10/$20 - No Limit Hold'em - 6:00:47 ET - 2007/01/26
Seat 1: CALLINGDONKEY ($1,801)
Seat 2: PaddyHat ($4,769.70)
Seat 3: donkamentking ($1,166.15)
Seat 4: WSODice ($3,830.60)
Seat 5: HotMama087 ($800)
Seat 6: Ben Roberts ($3,385.50)
CALLINGDONKEY posts the small blind of $10
PaddyHat posts the big blind of $20
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
donkamentking raises to $70
WSODice folds
CALLINGDONKEY folds
PaddyHat raises to $220
donkamentking raises to $1,166.15, and is all in
PaddyHat calls $946.15
PaddyHat shows [Jc Jh]
*** FLOP *** [3h 7c 4c]
*** TURN *** [3h 7c 4c] [7s]
*** RIVER *** [3h 7c 4c 7s] [Td]
donkamentking shows a pair of Sevens
PaddyHat shows two pair, Jacks and Sevens
PaddyHat wins the pot ($2,340.30) with two pair, Jacks and Sevens
donkamentking is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $2,342.30 | Rake $2
Board: [3h 7c 4c 7s Td]
Seat 1: CALLINGDONKEY (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: PaddyHat (big blind) showed [Jc Jh] and won ($2,340.30) with two pair, Jacks and Sevens
Seat 3: donkamentking showed [Ac Qh] and lost with a pair of Sevens
Seat 4: WSODice didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: HotMama087 is sitting out
Seat 6: Ben Roberts (button) is sitting out

I get coached

2007-01-25T23:50:00.000Z

So today I got coached by 2p2's clayton. He's a very good player, and i learnt lots and lots.
I'm gonna take more lessons in the future

weird last few days all around, won 41k yesterday, lost $500 today. I'm at least 1PTBB/100 better than before tho, imo.

poker coaching is very worthwhile, and i should probably get back to picking up students again.

Tomorrow I go to dublin, for coke/blow/hookers. maybe some alchopops? (j/k)
Might be a bit of a waste of time poekrwise, but should quite simply jsut be lots of fun although i've begun to dislike plane rides.

pfff trip report later

money post

2007-01-24T00:48:00.000Z

well i was up $700 yesterday

-$1k today.

holla

hey

2007-01-23T11:09:00.000Z

freebie vid. i'll probably take it down soon. i don't really do much in it.

http://rapidshare.com/files/12722745/tttttttttttt.wmv

Today was gay

2007-01-21T00:40:00.000Z

I dunno why I keep blogging so much, but here's today

really fustrating as I was getting coolered all over the place. some seriously wack stuff. At teh end, it was kinda gay. I guess I might jsut book a loss for the day. I dunno. Gonna watch some tv then maybe get back to teh tables later.

I played really bad after all the coolers, a mistake on my part. Also, The huge downswing kinda happened when i was WAY too tired to play, and should have napped. My own fault

update: even YO!

erm

2007-01-20T03:26:00.001Z

+$930 in 606 hands. i need to play more hands

One Year On

2007-01-18T10:36:00.000Z

Enough of all my random posts about winning monies. I randomly checked that today is pretty much exactly 1 year on from when i started my blog. Back then I think my BR was around $1.2k, give or take a couple of hundred.

At that stage I was just a typical micro stakes player, who was winning because of bonuses and rakeback, but not THAT much clue as to why. I was probably playing breakeven poker at NL25 without much of a clue about poker. I realised this, as you could see that I was also selling stuff on ebay, and I was also selling cigerettes to people in my halls. Now I don't bother with any of that, simply because it's not worht my time. I had no idea I'd be as good as I am now, or how good I could eventually be. In fact, I have to admit that I don't really think I'm that good really now. Just know how to play basic ABCish poker and try not to make too many errors.

Something that most micro stakes players don't know, is what it means to play ABC poker. What they think is ABC, is generally EXTREMELY weak-tight. It's also usually a little bit too loose.
Some of the most important things to learn (there's more, but this is what comes to mind) :

1) value betting
2) position
3) relative hand strengths
4) implied odds
5) image

1) learn to value bet. It's simple. If you have a strong hand, please bet it. If you have a decent draw, and it just got there, bet. If you have a set, and someone bets into you or raises, reraise. Also make it big amounts, like pot sized. not minraised. not to $20 after dude bets $8 into a $16 pot. make that shit $33 to go!

2) this is totally misunderstood by many low stakes players. They undestand position is important, but they don't really know why. It's mainly because it's a lot harder to play marginal holdings optimally, and harder to extract value.

3)This is mainly kicker problems. For example in a standard raised pot, going broke with KJ on a KK6 board looks VERY bad because there's virtually no hand you beat. Assuming it's unlikely villain just decides to straight up bluff you out of nowhere (although this does happen) you pretty much don't beat ANY legit hands. You are smoked.

4)This is people overestimating implied odds. For example the odds of floping a set are 7.5-1. However dbitel calculated that actually you need closer to 18-1 odds to call preflop with a small pp. This is because you are not guaranteed to stack someone everytime you hit, and also you can get hit by set over set or some otehr random FD/OESD. I think the calculation was that if you have 33 on 3xx without knowing what xx is, the set will stand up by the river only 68% of the time vs a reasonable range (KQ+, 44+ etc etc). This shows that flopping a set is not the be all and end all (although saying that, you should almost NEVER fold a set on the flop)

5) This is so important. Both the villain's image, and how he perceives you are so key in so many hands that I think many hands are almost impossible to give good analysis on without a full breakdown of the images and history.

The above isn't really an in depth analysis, just a general obsevation of what I've seen. (for real analysis pay me $50/hr for coaching... j/k, well sorta, i do coach for $50/hr). Obviously I could try and give a breakdown of exactly how to play certain situations, but that would take ages and a lot of effort. What I'm saying is these are the things that took me a long time of thinking before I started making any money.

I've come a long way since when I first started, and so can you. The are key things though in doing so.
First off I'm pretty dope at math. Ok I'm not eactly lighting the world on fire at uni, and there are many people that are WAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaYYYY better than me at math. However I have a good grasp of numbers, did GCSE early, pwned A-level, doing a heavyish math based uni degree, etc etc. This is kinda essential because although the general math of poker is not that hard, and you should learn it quickly, it is something that you should pretty much 'get' straight away. A by product of this is that the kids that were good at math in school are good at logical thinking, which is key in poker.
You really have to want to win, and not just at poker, everything. When I play games, I hate to lose. It got to the stage that at 14yrs old I sat myself down and had to teach myself not to 'want' to win everything. It still pisses me off when I don't win these days, but I've learnt to not be so pissed about the small stuff. You know, football, basketball, games of pool, etc etc. However I always wanna win at poker cos its money YO!

One of the biggest factors separating MSNL, the better SSNLers and everyone else below is the number of hands played. This comes from the above point about math/logic skills. Also a lot of us grew up playing computer games, so are used to very hectic screens. The point is, we (yeah i'm gonna go with 'we') play a LOT more hands than most SSNLers and uNLers. We play 6-12 tables and put in 3-6hrs a day. Most micro players i see don't. Many only play 1-2 tables. Now I understand that it's tough initially to play more, and also understand that many people just play recreationally so don't want to have to 'grind'. This point is for those who really want to move up fast, and make mad monies. You HAVE to play more tables. 4 is like the minimum unless you plan to play 10hrs a day.
My only thoughts are that a lot of micro players want to take things seriously, but when they play 4hr sessions and churn out like 250 hand sessions I wanna cry. That's about a 30min session for me at 6-tables.
The bankroll is important, and its good to be properly rolled. However don't equate skill level to bankroll. I wouldn't suggest playing outside of your roll unless you had a huge sample size that you beat a level, and were only underrolled because of non-poker related stuff. My point is that -5 buyin sessions happen almost every week. Well, almost, maybe 3 weeks out of 4. Maybe more depending on how much you play. The point is, 20 buyins really doesnt cut it and you are gonna want in the region of 40.

Oh I also read a lot of the strategy posts on twoplustwo.com, and chat to a lot of the regulars. In fact I almost never post HH's anymore, just ask other people. I'm also considering a coach, probabaly in the $150/hr region.

Right now I have a $19k+ BR after numerous cashouts. In fact from Jan last year, I still didnt really make money until Aug.
Before then, I bonus whored. Pretty much the best, easiest and fastest way to build a bankroll. Check out pokersourceonline, I have a link on the left under 'poker links' on the left. But at the same time save some sites like FTP for rakeback. You'll want to save either interpoker or sunpoker for rakeback too on crypto, in case you ever want to play there.

This is kinda a general review for the kinda stuff that you'll need to do to beat up to NL100. NL200 imo is slightly different, but pretty much the same thing. NL400? I dunno, I don't have any sample size, although I am up lifetime at it.

what it do

2007-01-18T07:57:00.000Z

what it do bloggers?

without really realising it, this might be my best week ever. Started on the 10th of jan and finished yesterday. i know the graph says 10 days, but it lies i'm too lazy to make it look better.

taking today off, because i have homework and am sleepy. Tomorrow I get back to it, hope to play 6k-10k hands friday till sunday (inclusive). If I run goot, I might start taking shots at that mansion $100k guaranteed. I suck at donkaments in general, but if I run well, $100 buyin donkaments wont be not thang.

holla

funny session

2007-01-18T00:53:00.000Z

2.6k hands +$400. bit swingy, LOADs of coolers. things could be worse

lol today

2007-01-16T22:47:00.000Z

lol?

back to back $1k days. holla

fwiw i played 1.2k hands at NL100 this morning before class, came back and mixed it up at NL200 and NL400. managed to stack two people in the space of 15 hands at NL400, so it looks like i spiked.

month so far

2007-01-16T18:21:00.000Z

just a pic.

hopefully it doesnt go bad. +$500 from other computer

lol_slavery

2007-01-15T14:13:00.000Z

Maybe not the most PC of titles. The above is actually a screenname of a 2p2 SSNL regular.

It is MLK day.

I've been really busy this month in general, and wish I could play more, but I suck at playing hands. I've made some money this month, not that much though. I've also been extremely tired. My sleeping pattern is rediculously out of wack.

Currently I'm playing 7-9 tables on party. I'm only using my 30" monitor, and have the 20" and 19" on my second computer. So far I haven't actually figured out a use for having two computers.

I've watched a lot of tv recently, I really like the apprentice. There's a new series in America, and lol Donald Trump's daughter Ivana is HAWT. She seems pretty competant but I am a little annoyed. There's a new 'gimmick' thing with the whole sleep in teh tent fiasco. I think that this is really bad. This happens to shows when they start to get stale, they bring in new gimmicks.
The apprentice as a show is almost done, there's a couple of seasons left in it MAXIMUM. Also there's not as much focus on the actual task, it's all about the people and their 'feelings'. The show needs to go back to the bare bones of a big task, and everyone working hard/failing.

Ok I'm off for a nap now, then hope to get in a medium length session later this evening.

HOLLA BOOMSWITCH

2007-01-12T16:23:00.000Z

i just went rostucko, and can now 12-table on party.

SHIP IT! CRUCIAL

below is a pic of my month so far. note: my first session was on the 10th, so barely any hands obv

Quickie

2007-01-11T16:15:00.000Z

Well, I've just had a really fustrating start to the day

I was 9-tabling both crypto and party, and playing 'decently' although I think 9 is maybe 1 table too many for me just now.

I didn't stack anyone, but did manage to get stacked several times. I'm on a buit of life tilt, simply because the session was a little fustrating, things wouldn't run my way and you know, usual beats etc. I'll be back at the tables later tonight after a bit of a break. Hopefully I'll clock another 2k hands tonight

Week Break

2007-01-07T03:06:00.000Z

So i haven't played much, pretty much just had a week off. I say this every month, but this month the goal REALLY IS to clock around 40k hands.

This month is the first time in ages that I've felt pretty sure that I will too. The main goal is to not tilt, and I hope I don't have to play too many sessions where I am chasing 5 buyins to break even. I'm gonna play about 5k hands of NL200 the first few days (2-3 days max I'm gonna say), then drop 10k hands at NL400. I'll set a shot 'stop-loss' at 5 buyins, but I'm really expecting not to have to. I'm really confident about things right now. Tomorrow I'm gonnaget my ass through the first 3 eps of 24, and then a couple of CR vids. Monday I think I have class, and also need to see my tutor, but then will clock 2k hands in the evening. Actually forget what I said about hands before I play NL400, if I have class/am slightly tired I'll be at NL200 and maybe NL100 if I'm really tired, but if I'm fresh I'll be at NL400. Lets not beat around the bush, I'm fed up of NL200 monies and I've seen several players whom I consider weak playing NL400, as well as an array of fish.

new setup is:

What UP?

2007-01-04T19:47:00.000Z

This year's been a little slow, I've spend pretty much ALL my time watching 'the wire'. So obviously I'm almost done with season 3.

Pokerwise I played my first session today. Decided NL200 monies wasn't good enough, so i moved up

.

biut of a fustrating session, being down X amount really didnt bother me.

Biggest losers. Holla!

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ Hero (4 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

UTG ($832.70)
Button ($348.20)
SB ($553.60)
Hero ($428)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8c, Kc. SB posts a blind of $2.
1 fold, Button raises to $8, 1 fold, Hero calls $4.

Flop: ($18) 4c, Ac, 5c (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $4, Hero raises to $16, Button raises to $28, Hero raises to $66, Button raises to $104, Hero raises to $222, Button raises to $340, Hero calls $424 (All-In), Button calls $348.20 (All-In).

Turn: ($853) 3d (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($853) 4h (2 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: $853
Results below:
Hero has 8c Kc (flush, ace high).
Button has Ah As (full house, aces full of fours).
Outcome: Button wins $853

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text)

Hero ($396)
BB ($537.06)
UTG ($841.08)
MP ($488)
CO ($425.90)
Button ($312.65)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Js, Jd. Hero posts a blind of $2.
3 folds, Button calls $4, Hero (poster) raises to $18, 1 fold, Button calls $16.

Flop: ($44) 6c, 9c, 8c (2 players)
Hero bets $34, Button calls $34.

Turn: ($112) 2h (2 players)
Hero bets $78, Button raises to $156, Hero calls $394 (All-In), Button calls $312.65 (All-In).

River: ($622) 9d (2 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: $622

Results below:
Hero has Js Jd (two pair, jacks and nines).
Button has 9h Ts (three of a kind, nines).
Outcome: Button wins $622.

The Big Picture

2007-01-01T18:40:00.000Z

As shown above! for a $4316 total

Bonuses:

£25 from willhill monthly
$120 stars reload
$1085 from party reload + surprise surpirse + winter promo + pick your gift

Blackjack:

$100 froma flip because I lost monies at NL(0.10).

$450 from play whilst clearing $400 in bonuses
$800 from my gambling problems

Live:

(£200) cash games after my blowup tilt
+£80 in total from donkament

total $6681 for teh month. Wow I didn't bother to total before, but I was closer to $7k than I thought. Could have broken $7k, but as can be seen below I got AI preflop with AA vs KK vs QT and lost in the $500 pot when KK spiked. kinda gay because I went on lifetilt right there, before spending 5hrs to come off lifetilt. A terrible way to welcome the new year, playing a 6.5hr session to get unstuck. The games were good though and I'd probably have got unstuck a lot sooner had I actually run well or not got outdrawn in tough spots.

So pre living costs I hit $19861 total, butI'm gonna -$4861 this month cos I bought a new comp and am gonna start withdrawing more. So BR back to $15000 but tbh it probably makes no difference if I had $10k, $15k or $20k right now, I'm staying at NL200 until I feel I dominate the level, and even if I'm jsut a mild winner its really good money if I can get the hands in. In the past BR was to 'keep score' but now I almost don't care, I'm just keeping it updated incase I do care sometime

Live poker is really boring

2006-12-30T05:13:00.000Z

Last two days I met up with one of my best friends from school, Lewi. We actually kinda lost touch for 3 yrs, not bothering to chat until the 3rd year of uni (last year), when one time when we were obviously both very bored on msn, we messaged each other.

Him: hi
Me: hi
Him: whats new?
Me and Him: yadayadayada... do you play poker?

Obivously it kicks off cos I'm playing NL25/NL50 and he's playing NL600. Anyway fast forward to Wednesday we pop down to teh gutshot. The donkament going at 8pm is a £30 +£30 'rebuy or add-on'. Basically £30 for 1500 chips and you get either one rebuy or one add-on for 2000 chips, so baiscally its a £60 buyin for 3500 chips. I get bored after the first break, and start pushbotting, get caught out BADLY but double to be big and then get the table broken. This is good cos i now have a table which probably respects me and has no idea I'm about to run them over.
Now I don't ever want to play postflop given stack/blind ratios, so obviously I'm pushbotting. This proves complicated because they're usually too stupid to realise whats going on, but just see me as crazy wild because they wouldn't ever dare 'put their whole tournament life at risk' in the crazy way that I did. I pretty much shoved 2.5 times per orbit once it got down to 14 left andf two tables, and absolutely raped it. tbh I got seriosuly unlucky to have no good starting hands, and lost 1 big pot with AJ vs JJ which i was actually considering passing. never mind, i shove 2 hands in a row and steal it all back. Live donkaments are easy, cos people are suck pussies. People obviously think I'm some kinda idiot, because they'd never shove without a pair, and i was making people fold AK, which tbh was fucknig crazy. motherfucking Q high is good vs my range, wtf are you doing you idiots?
The guy to my direct left was having the worst of it, because unless he was UTG, he was facing a shove almost every time. Eitehr someone raises/shove in front of me, or it folds to me and i shove. I never walked him once. Eventually he calls with K6 and lolo what did you expect? obivously I have T7s. He wins, nvm, i have 5x the number of chips he has. I shove next hand, Q7 vs some nits 66. holla i win FT time.
This last all of two hands when i shove Q6 into the bb who snap calls KQ, nvm out 7th. I was pissed simply cos the damn thing too so long. I got like £173, but first was £1.3 so i was obviously rather pissed off since I felt I should have won. I got called a 'one trick pony', but tbh wtf do you want? If I play like everyone else, I pray for good cards and almost never get to make the final table until i run AA into KK like 4 times, which is pretty much what everyone else was doing to get to the FT.
layed cash games after and ended +£50.

That was then, next day I win $380 online, then go to the gutshot and blow £350 almost instantly. A pretty terrible blow up.

Nvm, today was even crazier and can be found here. I would definitely recommend reading, so as you never fall into this terrible situation yourself. This is an example of some of the times when I can have totally mental blowups, and it wasn't even playing poker. I basically end up betting $1k/hand on blackjack, twice after losing the first one (and then obviously I continue gambling at $200 and $500/hand because I'm still not ahead).

I'm not gonna post a full report, but basically I should break $6k this month as long as I don't have any crazy rediculous losing days this weekend. I won't do a yearly round up properly, cos I really can't be bothered and dont care, but I think I am around $30k, which is solid cos I totally sucked at poker untill August.

Bring on next year. gl to all

Stay home, grind lots, run hot

2006-12-27T05:21:00.000Z

Since Dec 22nd, I've been running liek this:

My flatmate Damien told his mother that i was staying in the flat alone during Christmas, so she told Damo to invite me for Christmas dinner. His family is cool, and last time I went I kinda slept the whole way through so it would have been nice to go and actually show them that I don't sleep 24/7. However the holiday games are awesome, and I've been feeling a bit of money pressure recently so decided that I'd try and make some monies. Thus I ddin't go to Leeds, and stayed by myself for Chirstmas. I've been running really good, helped by the fact that party is really easy right now.

hand below is vs a guy who is actually probably pretty ok, or at leasy PAHUD tells me that.
It's pretty obvious he has a big pp, and I didn't rule out QQ, but LOL at him having boat + FD outs, I'm running extremely well for him not to hit.

beat: wasn't full stacked preflop

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)

saw flop|saw showdown
BB ($200)
UTG ($189.60)
MP ($267)
Button ($191.85)
SB ($843.80)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 6s, 5s. SB posts a blind of $1.
1 fold, MP raises to $7, Button raises to $23, 2 folds, MP calls $16.

Flop: ($49) Qc, 9s, 4s (2 players)
MP checks, Button bets $34, MP calls $34.

Turn: ($117) 7s (2 players)
MP bets $45, Hero calls $191.85 (All-In), MP calls $89.85.

River: ($443.70) Kc (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $443.70

Results below:
MP has Qh Qs (three of a kind, queens).
Hero has 6s 5s (flush, nine high).

Outcome: Hero wins $386.70. MP wins $57.

I've been playing pretty solidly recently, and been making some goot monies. I feel a lot better when playing, and haven't really been losing any big pots which is good.
I've been sitting down and NOT donking off a stack immediately, which is actually great. Anyway, only wanted a quick post as I have to wake up in 3hrs time to wait for my new monitor to get delivered.