Stuck in a moment

I haven't blogged for a while and although the reason behind this can usually be explained by a bad run at the tables in this instance this is not the case. Things are going fine but for a while i just felt like i was stuck in a bit of a rut and didn't really feel like expressing the negative emotions that i was feeling.

The way that i spend my life is certainly unusual and although i wouldn't trade it for anything else, like all things there are downsides to go with the positives. Sometimes i get bored or frustrated and one of the things that bothers me the most is my selfish nature and the whole moral question of gambling for a living. I try and remind myself that i play for my own enjoyment but it can be hard to get your head round the fact that i make a living out of other people losing money. This feeling is also heightened in cash games where you can obviously take more off individuals than in tournaments. Still what's great about poker is that it's a game of skill and if someone wants to get better and turn themselves into a winning player then there is a wealth of information out there to help them do that.

Wow, when i started writing this i had literally no idea what i was going to say so i guess all of the above is the truth, even if it is a bit of a rant.

Online Report:

Since my last post my online poker addiction has brought mixed success. In tournaments i've pretty much being having to take it hard and fast from everyone out there. Full tilt poker officially hates me, every time i log onto there site i'm sure administration is thinking of a fun way to bust me out, hmmmmmmmmm set on set, flush v flush, KK v AA or shall we just do the usual where i get my money in as a 3/1 favourite and win about 5% of the time. The field are bigger and better and my volume hasn't been great as i refuse to play low stakes MTT's but having to constantly ship money to my neteller account and then to my full tilt account is not much fun at all. Also with the $ getting stronger against the £ having to ship money the other way is a real kick in the nads. As for party tournaments things have been a little break even for my liking but i'm not to worried as i have an ROI for 2008 of 148% and have won a rather impressive $47,824 this year without even having a big score. Those morons have paid for my right to sleep till 2pm and to spend £40 a week on takeaways and to go out and get pissed whenever the hell i want, long may this continue!! Just looking at my OPR stats i also have got a lot better at closing out tournies with 8 wins from 25 final tables in 08. Seeing as all the money is on the final table this is something that i feel extremely positive about, final tables are my bag baby, just wish i could make a few more of them.

Ok so brag over onto cash games, monthly graph:

As you can see things were a bit shit for a while but am currently up about $2500 which is coolio. More importantly i think that i've learnt a lot about 6 max and my game is going from strength to strength, just wish i had been learning 6 max cash 2 years ago and then i might be a $10/20 reg like Jambon and be smashing it up. Overall i'm up about $9K since the end of October which is a good start all things considered. The exciting thing is i still have a shitload to learn and i'm really enjoying the game at the moment, my hand reading skills have always been my best skill and if i can avoid tilting 2009 could be a big year for me in the world of online cash.

Live Report

After my last rather disappointing trip to DTD i decided to head back up there at the start of this month to play the £1K annual event. The structure was awesome, same as the WSOP main event and obviously i was hugely confident in doing well. My starting table was fine and in general quite tight and easy to control, i was playing fast but not crazy and got a really nice double up in the second level with KK v AQ on a AKx flop. To be honest i think my style just confused the guy, i was raising a lot pre but as usual was trying to control the size of pots, bluff dry boards and extract value where i could but in his simple mind maybe he was thinking i was a maniac and top pair was the nuts. Unfortunately for me that hand was as good as it got as i busted in the fourth level. It wasn't a case of one cold deck or one bad bluff it was just simply nothing went right. Every bluff failed and every good hand lost, i then lost 15K with AQ v 1010 on a AJx board when he made trips on the river, what made it worse was he was fat, welsh and shit. After the early double i thought the chance of me not making day 2 was about 20/1 but the experience taught me that sometimes it just isn't to be. I'm proud that even though i was a complaining little bitch i still don't regret a single decision that i made and i'm looking forward to playing as many live deepstacks as i can, without doubt the greatest form of poker.

Surprisingly i haven't mentioned already that i'm flying out to South Africa tomorrow for Christmas and new year. I'm going with my mum, dad, sister, aunty, uncle and two cousins and we're meeting up with the rest of mum side, who live over there. It should be a lot of fun and i'm kind of glad that i wont get to play poker for a while so i can take a break and reflect on a few things in general. We get back on the 5th i think so i'm planning on doing a blog then which will be all about what i hope to achieve in 2009, i've been saying for a while that i plan on winning the WSOP main event in that year so will have to make that goal number 1.

Graph

It took me a while to work out how to upload this as i'm that retarded.If the numbers are unclear just click on the graph, It catches the downswing beautifully and the long grind back to former glory. I'm putting a few more hours in of late and i hope it pays off with continued success, graphs are fun.

6 Max swings

Not played a whole lot of tournies this month but instead have been working on improving my 6 max cash game. To aid me i have been using a trial version of poker tracker 3 but have recently purchased holdem manager which apparently is in some way better, i'm not sure how, truth be told i'm such a retard that even installing it is proving to be a little difficult at the moment. Anyway so far i've had mixed success, I'm up $3.7K since i started playing toward the end of October and $1.4K of that is this month. I was up a shitload more than that but had two disaster days where i lost $3K and most of that money was my fault. I ran pretty bad but instead of just stopping i started tilting and jerking off buy-ins all over the place, that was a good couple of days, lol.
Overall i would say that i'm happy with how things are going, i started off running really well and most of my decision making has been quite sound. The main thing to work on is defiantly finding a way to avoid tilting because even if your running badly the players at 0.5/1 and 1/2 are so bad that you can still find ways to win even when the cards aren't negotiating. The main thing that has improved my game has been watching some videos on leggopoker.com, not so much copying what these guys are doing but just seeing what there thinking about during hands and being able to logically justify your actions. I know i'm playing crap when i'll make a bad call or a shit bluff without thinking about it, i'll then go through the hand and just be like, why the fuck did i do that?; thankfully these hands are becoming a lot less frequent. I'm still making a load of mistakes but at least now i'm recognising them and this is the first step to stopping them altogether.
Saved a few hands that i thought were cool/interesting:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3439019

That was a nice turn card and always nice to 3 bet the 75 soooooooooted!!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3439027

This hand is a classic example of people playing like total retards, his line in the hand is simply awful. Ship his 120 x.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3439026

Sick beat on this one and nothing i can do obviously this worst thing is even if the river blanks you know he'll just call all three barrels with top pair 3 kicker.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3439025

Another mong donk! when he bet the river i was just confused as hell because it makes no sense at all, the stacks were so deep pre which made it fun.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3439022

Finally i nice call by me.

So i'm planning on playing another 10K hands or so this month and obviously a few more tournies but nothing to excessive. In life away from poker 6 of us are heading back to Kent this weekend for a game of golf and a piss up in maidstone. We're also doing a combined 'sports' event on the following; golf, pool, pingpong, bowling, darts and tiger woods 09. I'm not sure how i'll get on but am quietly confident as i'm one of the best at bowling and ping pong and am the man to beat on tiger woods, should be a fucking good laugh! Think i'll play a heavy schedule on sunday but i might be a bit hungover so have to wait and see.

DTD trip report and crushing 100nlh.

My trip to Nottingham brought mixed success, Unfortunately i was unable to cash in either of the tournament that i played but thankfully i was able to win both of my buy-ins back playing cash games. On the surface this may seem like a bit of a waste of time but overall i had some fun and it was good to get out of the flat for a few days.
I left London quite early friday afternoon and was pleasantly surprised how quickly it took me to get to leicester, where i was staying with my friend Joe. After dropping my bag off at his student accommodation (nice spacious room but classically dirty communal areas), we jumped on the trains to notts and got there in plenty of time to play the £100 comp at 8pm. The structure was ok (5K in chips and 30 min levels) but i found myself a little bit bored and in a childish mood surrounded by mostly middle aged men. So in a moment of inspiration i decided to start drinking, 6 bottles of Corona later and i'm all cheered up.
Not a great deal happened in the first few hours as i had very few hands and very few spots to take advantage of the relatively poor standard of play. Soon we were playing 300/600 and i only had 7K, one poorly timed shove (running J8 sooooooooooooted in to AA) and after the monster suckout i'm up and running. I then find AK v AJ at 400/800 and by the start of the 600/1200 level there are 22 left from 90 and i'm one of the chipleaders with 35K. From this spot i'm crazy confident to make the final as i have a huge amount of experience with this stack playing these blinds but alas it was not meant to be. First i get 16K in with 88 v QJ on a 10 6 2 board having made a very good call he hits a queen on the river then i get my last 18K in 3 betting a lag with 66 v AJ when he raises the button, gg me.
So the first tourney was a bit of a nightmare but this was soon behind me by 6am as Joe and i returned to leicester after a lengthy cash game session of PLO and NLH. I won £350 but felt a bit rough by the end of the night and even by the time we returned for the £330 the next day i could think of thousands of places i would rather have been.
Obviously mood is an important factor in poker. When you really want to play your focus is there and inevitably your decision making is improved. Think of the total opposite mood and for some unknown reason this is the one i found myself in on saturday, as a result my play was shocking. I played some of the worst poker that i ever have and nothing went right at all. Every bluff failed and every decent hand was outdrawn and the worst thing was the standard on my table was laughable, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a £5 comp not a £330 one, people were limping in 80% of hands, limp calling 7x the blind raises with 10 5 sooted, cold calling 3 bets with 56 and my favourite gentlemen liked to min raise from the small blind after the obvious 5-6 limpers. The tourney has such a great structure and the general standard is so poor that i would be willing to stake anyone i know who knows the first thing about the game, simply shocking.
Anyway that's the end of my little rant, i busted at the end of level 2 and Joe busted shortly before. We played a lttle bit more round of each and i won again winning a big pot in PLO when it came 963 with me holding 8765 v 99xx. The other guy was a bit of a rock/station so i even waited till i hit the straight because he was so bad that he had to have 99 and nothing else, nice 5 on the river, ship ship.
I got back on sunday and played the full tilt $750K gtd finishing 160th for another frustrating deep/annoying run on a weekly major title and last night i came 30th in the $100 + 1 rebuy + 1 add-on with 27 getting paid having lost AJ V J10 for a top 5 chip stack, nice to see i'm still running like a retard on that site. Anyway i'm still of to a good start this month thanks to being +$3K already playing cash. 100nl is full of morons and thought i'd post a few examples:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3408032

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3408032

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3408032

I've moved up to 200nl ahead of planned and things have gone very well so far. I'm still watching a lot on leggo poker and this is really helping with my though process during hands. The one obvious major difference in mindset between cash and tourneys is going from how do i make sure i survive? to how do i extract maximum value? I'm working hard and so far have only had 1 tilting session, apart from that i'm happy with my game and running very hot v the right players.
In other news i'm still feeling a bit lazy but have managed to get half way through freakenomics which is a very interesting book, it's mentally demanding but certainly changes the way that statistical data can be analysed and explores a lot of the topics that i myself find quite intriguing, i.e nature v nurture and individual human greed. Finished prison break series 1, fucking awesome and i'm now onto series 2 which my friends have give mixed reviews. Going to see Russel Howard on friday which should be cool then out on the piss with a few of the boys from home. Not sure when i'll blog next but for now the goal is simple, another solid $10K month.

Come on you Spurs.

I was lucky enough to have tickets to the Arsenal V Spurs game last night and as i'm sure any football fan would already know, it turned out to be an absolute classic! To come back from 4-2 down with 89 minutes played and get a point away from home was an awesome result for us and i'm proud to say that i was there. The only problem was that i was in the home end so obviously i had to keep my celebrations to a minimum and do most of my celebrating in my head. Overall i thought that it was a bit of a lucky result, Arsenal dominated the game for long periods and when theo got the ball i was shitting myself because his pace is electric and he played really well. Having said that Spurs stuck in the match and scored 2 great goals, David Bentley you hero! As far as the new manager goes i think that it's a decision that had to be made, Ramos finally learns English and gets fired, i guess that's football. Still it looks like Harry has had a immediate effect and i'm sure that come Christmas we'll be safe in mid table and can hope to push up into the top half in the new year, we've always been a cup side anyway, lol.
On a personal note not a great deal has happened since my last post, i've been a lazy lazy fucker and most have my time has been spent wanking, sleeping and watching prison break series 1; 10/10. Having set out with such hope at the start of month to try and be fairly productive i have failed miserably. I've had somewhere between 8 and 10 takeaways, been for 6 swims and been to the gym a pathetic 4 times. Despite theses short-Cummings i have managed to achieve 1 of my for monthly goals by racking up over 100 Mtt's. My results have been mixed and have continued on from the same trend as before, do well on party and suck balls on full tilt. I lost $5K this month on ftp but thanks to 3 decent scores on party i won about $14K on that site and am +$9K on the month, this has also been aided by the dollar getting stronger so it converts to around £5.5K and the best thing is its all tax free obviously. Tournaments have always been stronger for me than cash games but seeing how much some of my friends have made playing cash has urged me to take closer interest. I've downloaded poker tracker 3 and poker hud and have been working hard on my 6 max cash game. I've only been playing 4 tables of $0.5/1 but the software is helping a lot with game selection and i'm watching a lot of videos on leggo poker to try and improve. Although i still have tons to learn i've made a good start and am about $1.5K up this week, although i have the bankroll to play 3/6 i'm more than happy to start playing low and just try and improve enough to crush theses games, planing to move up to $1/2 at the start of December but i wont be doing that until i clear $5K at the lower level first.
My big news is that for the first time in over a month i will be leaving London! Scary! I'm going up to Nottingham tomorrow to play some live tournies, the first at 8pm is a £100 Freeze and the next is a two day £330 deepstack running on saturday and sunday. The structure of the two day comp is fairly decent so i should have a fairly big edge, i have no idea how many runners to expect but would be disappointed with anything under 60. Will do a full write up when i return to sunny London and i might set a few more realistic goals for the month we call November.

A tale of two sites.

Just gonna start by saying that this is my 50th post, when i started writing this blog over a year ago now i thought it may well be another short term project that i ultimately got bored with and gave up on. Despite these immediate concerns however i'm very pleased that i've been able to maintain the blog and in return i think that it's allowed me to keep my poker in perspective and allowed me to express myself freely so i would say that overall it's been a success. Personally one of the major advantages for me is to be able to look back in time and see how i was doing at any given time and i certainly hope i can keep going with it even if this poker thing goes tits up.
My October goals have started with mixed success. First up the no take-away rule has failed horrendously; Liam and Mike have gone to Dublin for four days and we weren't able to do a big shop. Although i share the responsibility as i could have walked to Asda and bought a load of healthy stuff the simple convenience factor was to much for me and dominoes were on there way, i lasted 6 days btw. Since then i've had 2 chinese takeaways, might as well go down in a blaze of glory.
The swimming and gym sessions have also got off to a pretty bad start. As i sit here writing this it's coming up to 2am on the morning of the 12th, i've been swimming 4 times and to the gym twice so i'm way off my target of 20 and 10 respectively. It's going to be a huge ask to reach those targets but i think if is stop being such a lazy fucker i can do it; there are so many free hours in my days it would be a huge shame if i couldn't manage something that in reality should be fairly easy.
The one goal for the month that is of course going to plan is the increased amount of poker tournaments that i've been trying to play. I've racked up over 40 already so getting to 100 should be no problem whatsoever. Quantity however is of course a distant second in importance in this instance to results which as the title of this blog suggests have been mixed. Unfortunatley i'm -$3K on fulltilt and this is a big disappointment. I've made some conscious changes to my play in order to adapt to the site but i think i need to make some more. I've ran quite bad at the wrong times but i still seem to struggle in the middle stages of a lot of tourneys when maybe i hit the panic button a little to early and try and force a move or call off in a spot where deep down i know i should be folding. The worst thing is that i know in a lot of full tilt tourneys i've not played my best and as i've said before being a pro is not about playing your A game some of the time it's about bringing it most of the time and if i can do this i'm sure a decent score on that sight will arrive before i go on holiday to South Africa in a couple of months. Fortunately things have been going much better on my beloved party poker where i'm +$9.5K over the last 12 days. I've only made 2 final tables but on both occasions my concentration has been 100% and i've won them both in style. I feel really comfortable on this site as soon as i get a stack together i'm very hard to beat, god bless those party donks. I havn't posted a hand for a while so i'' stick this classic up just to annoy cashy when he reads this:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3310610

Quite standard for me really, to lazy to explain.

So as far as poker goes i'm up $6.5K on the month and will be more than happy if i can get to +$10,000 by the end of October. Hope to put a big effort in next week in the pool and gym and hope to get back on track in relation to my goals. Fuck the no take-away rule, why change the habit of a lifetime. Just as a side note i smashed through Harry Potter 7 and i feel like a prick for saying it but as a series of books they were fantastic and get better and better as you go through. The author has an amazing writing style and just as was the case with the davinci code i couldn't book the last three books down. To anyone who has only watched the films and is a cynic of Harry Potter i would urge them to read the books, they are phenomenal. The next two books i'm going for are 'the curius incident of the dog in the night time', by Mark Haddon and Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Both have outstanding reviews and am looking forward to both. On the DVD front i'm 6 episodes in to the first series of 24 and i wouldn't say i'm enjoying it but i'm thrilled by it if that makes any sense at all, looking forward to seeing how things turn out cause at the moment the wife is in a car with a killer, the daughter is kidnapped by an evil genius and as for Mr Jack Bauer he seems to be fighting a 1 man battle against the rest of the world.

Monthly Goals

Got back from Devon yesterday afternoon and as expected had a good time. We left at 6am on Friday and from that moment on was pretty tired, playing a lot of golf in the day and then drinking till midnight every night. We played a 54 hole individual competition and i got off to a nightmare start, finishing dead last by 7 shots after day 1. I hadn't played for a couple of months and only 3 times this year so i wasn't shocked by this outcome, i was also giving 3 of the guys between 4 and 8 shots a round so it wasn't looking good. I played a lot better on day 2 and was still in last place but had shut the gap to 3 shots on mike and Liam so the 3 of us went out in the wooden spoon match on the final day. After a ding dong battle with Liam i managed to sneak past him on the 17th to finish 8 out of 9. I played better each day and by day 3 was at my very best tee to green, i putted terribly however which cost me a lot of shots and overall i was just glad not to finish last. Congrats to Ben 'big cheese' Warwick on his victory who played very solid all week and deserved it 100%. I only lost about £50 on the golf course thanks to my victory in the closest to the pin comp and won £30 in the paper/scissor- rock comp after a dramatic 4-3 victory against cashy in the best of 7 final. That's 2 in a row for me and am very pleased to rank myself as the number 1 player in the group, if not the world. We also played a 7-man £5 poker crapshoot which i obviously won winning every single all in pre showdown along the way, my favourite being the 8-3 V A3 classic coin flip scenario, lol. As far as the rest of the holiday goes, rooms were fine: 4/5. Food was good enough and a lot of it: 4/5. The main problems were that it felt a bit like an old peoples home and the rest of the people were mostly over 40 but this is to expected from a golf holiday i guess. Looking forward to next year.
Looking into the immediate future i've decided to set myself some goals for the upcoming month. I've been a bit of a lazy fucker of late and i think my results have reflected this. September was a decent month and it was nice to get back to winning ways after a shit August but i threw away a lot of good chances for $5K + paydays and am looking forward to trying to change this over the next few weeks, i also feel like i once again didn't put the hours in and am looking forward to pushing myself as hard as i can. Finally i ate real bad throughout the last few months and havn't put the hours in the gym and in the swimming pool since my return from Las Vegas. So with this in mind my goals for the month are:

1) Play a minimum of 100 MTT's before the end of October Ranging from anywhere between $50 to $550 freezeouts and $30 - $100 rebuys.

2) I'm not allowed to eat any fast food including pizza, indian, chinese, kebabs etc. Also make a conscious effort to eat less crisps, chocolate and biscuits.

3) Swim at least 20 times. Each session being 100 lengths of the 15m pool.

4) Go to the gym at least 10 times. 2000M on the rowing machine each time and weights as well.

So those are my 4 simple goals for the month and i think with a bit of hard work i should be able to manage. I was thinking about giving up alcohol but that might cause my body to die of shock so i'll just stick to fast food. I don't think i've gone a month without eating junk sine i was about 12 so this could be a struggle. As for the poker i'm not sure what effect a dramatic increase in play will have on my results. If i can keep my ROI above 100% on party and Full tilt i would be a very happy boy as that would result in a $10K month. I think the average day will be something like this; get up at 1pm, eat, go to the gym/pool between 2pm and 4pm. Play tiger woods-watch tv/read and eat dinner until 8pm and then play 4 or 5 tournies starting between 8 and 1am. The sleeping pattern might get a little fucked but as long as the last tourney i play doesn't start later than 1am and i'm always up before 2pm i should get plenty of sleep and be rested enough to achieve my goals. Will probably to a progress report after each week explaining how each of my objectives are going, who says poker player have no structure?

Poker, Golf and drinking.

As you may be able to guess from the title, this blog is going to be about 3 of my favourite things; poker, golf and drinking. In truth this is pretty much all my blogs are ever about so it shouldn't be to hard to write and certainly not to hard to follow.
Before i move on to my WSOPE event 1 report i'll just mention a few things from the night before. Jonn Taba organised a birthday party for reigning WSOPE champ Annette Oberstadt and very kindly invited us along. We had a few drinks before hand but seeing as the boys had work the next day and Will and i were playing i didn't plan on staying to long or drinking that much. This plan changed very quickly when we found out the drinks were free and most of us decided to take full advantage. Long story short after about 10 double vodka and Oranges and a bad night sleep i arrived at the empire feeling a little worse for wear and looking a little fragile. I was however dressed amazingly in my pink headband sunglasses and a rather fresh looking shirt. Just going back to the party for a sec Greg thought it would be funny to ask Phil Hellmuth if he was Phil Ivey, it was funny. It was even Funnier when he asked him again 10 minutes later, that boy cracks me up.
Anyway i took my seat in the upstairs section of the empire which was away from the main pit and got down to business. Folded for the first 10 minutes and was just having a look at the opposition and soon realised that i'd drawn a pretty weak table and everyone was playing quite tight; if its 1 thing to get over a hangover it's a weak table. So i raise the 74 soooted to 150 get 3 bet and fold, he shows AA. Raise the 10 8 off a few hands later, get 3-bet, fold. Wait a few hand raise on the Co with AJ get 3- bet, fold and get shown AK. So i'm sure you can notice a theme going on here but i wasn't to worried about this and just hoped that this pattern would fade out sooner rather than later. Managed to chip up to 6800 from a 6k start and felt like things were going rather well when this hand took place: UTG limps and i look down at 77 in mp so opt for the limp in behind and flop a set tactic. Folded round to the bb who checks before we see a rather sexy Q 7 6 rainbow flop. BB checks as does the limp and i bet 125 into a pot of 175. BB raises to 350 and limper folds. At this point i was sure he had atleast a queen and maybe 2 pair. He also was over 30 and seemed quite nervous so i'm not gibing him the straight draw as i think would check call in that spot. So now i'm thinking how can i try and get it all in by the river and raise to 900, he insta calls. Turn is another Queen which seems a great card for me considering his range and he bets 600. For some reason i just insta flat called, not sure why. Anyway river is a 9 and he bets 1500. At this point i have 2 options, call or go all in for another 3800. Online i would have just moved in in on the turn but the guy looked quite relaxed so i knew he though he had the best hand but obviously it's been 30 mins and i have no idea if this guy can play, he may think KQ is the nuts in this spot. Going back through the hand i made a desision that Q6 was a massive part of his range and decided that just a call was the correct play, he flipped Q6 and i managed to survive an absolute cold deck and still have over half my starting stack, very happy with that.
After about 5 orange juices the hangover was totally gone and i was feeling in the zone. Got my stack back up to 8000 during the 50/100 level witha few good bluffs and a some decent hands before i got the dreaded table move. The 100/200 level was a bit of a blur slipped down to about 7K and then got moved again to Will's table which was funny. This table was looking very serious and despite my good natured banter the rest of the guys were pretty much in the zone so i just tried to quite down a little bit and get on with it. The standard was certainly better on this table and as soon as we started playing 100/200/25 the aggression was a lot more noticeable. Soon got my stack to 11K when i won a flip with 88 v shortstacked J10 and then this went down: I look down at AK sooted on the Co and raise to 575, button folds and then the Sb (young American guy who just yelled online player) made it 1900. He had been looking for a spot to 3 bet me and i was sure his range was massive. I thought about smoothing but i thought he would bet most flops and it would be hard for me to call unless i hit so i thought 4-betting all in was the better play. I know he is unlikely to call with much but thought he would call with 1010+ and maybe even AQ, AJ considering the table dynamic, He did call but the bad news for me was it was with AA.
It turns out that young guy was Yuvgeni Timeshenko and he is a pretty big deal, he ended up finishing 3rd and has had some other big results as well:

http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/91983/yevgeniy-timoshenko.htm

We talked the hand over and he agreed it was just standard, seemed like a nice guy though and is clearly a great player. Overall i'm happy with the way i played but there was nothing i could do. Was a miracle i survived the first cold deck but surviving 2 in a structure that isn't the best is next to impossible.
Not sure when i'm going to play live again. Maybe the GUKPT Thanet if my 6 month ban is over, was thinking about going home anyway so would be a double whammy. In the Online world it's been a solid month, up about $4K ish and took down my first ever PLO comp last night on full tilt. It was only a $30 rebuy with 120 runners but the $3.3K was nice and i was surprised how bad the standard was. Twice i got donked on by other big stacks and had a big chiplead from 3 tables out. I didn't push quite as hard as i would have in a holdem comp as i wanted to avoid to many marginal spots but i played an aggressive game and in all honesty think i played quite well.
Finally its time for Oakhampton on friday and can't wait to get down there. We're leaving at 6am which sucks and i'm pretty sure i'll play crap but there are other sports down there as well and i just shot a 59 on tiger woods 2009, that had to be a good sign.

Full tilt V's Party

I've now been playing on full tilt poker for a few months and am pleased to say that i had my first mini score on the site a few days ago. I took $3.8K for 6th place in a $162 comp but was pretty fucked off with it as i had the chiplead with 8 left; then i just kept losing showdowns and eventually ran QQ into AA and went busto. Was pretty happy with my decision making throughout the tourney and am pleased to have a positive ROI on the site after a slow start and a terrible FTOPS.
The problem with starting to play on a new site is that you can't simply presume that you can play exactly the same way and make the same positive returns, a lesson i have now learnt. I'm not saying that you shouldn't keep the same general plan but i've just simply had to make a few changes to combat the contrasting style of the opposition. I'm not going to go into great detail on this one but one thing i will say that in general the standard on full tilt is a lot higher especially as you get deep. Despite this however the structure of the double stack tournies is also far superior to the regular comps on party poker. For the time being i'm happy to play on both sites and am planning on putting as many hours as i physically can in when we get back from Oakhampton.
On that note i simply can't wait for this golf holiday!!I'm not expecting to much from myself on the course but the banter will be awesome no doubt and it'll be good for some of the boys to get a break from the real world, man am i glad i'm not doing something to serious with my life.
Planning on buying into WSOPE tomorrow and then going to watch a little bit of champions league action after. Still not sure if i'm going to sell any % in myself, i think i should but at the same time i quite want to take the risk and just say oh fuck it lets gamble i don't want to give away any of my £150,000 first place, one time etc etc.
Not much going on at the moment in truth and think i'm writing this blog out of boredom more than anything else. Played 5-side football today and nearly died. Our team got quite easily beaten and i played pretty bad on pitch but was quite good in goal. Have finished Harry potter 5, another very good book and am now looking forward to smashing up the last two in the next few months.
Finally i think i have a new hero, this guy is sooooooooooooo sick funny:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xQWYfbqFiGE

Fixing some leaks.

I think one of my main weaknesses as a poker player and as a person in general is my over-confidence/arrogance. I'm certainly not a modest person and i also think i am realistic about my skills across the board; i am however a very gifted poker player or to be more exact a great NLH tournament player. The problem with this attitude is that sometimes it makes it hard to look at my game and analyse the weak elements of it, especially when running good and making plenty of cash.
Carrying on from my last blog things haven't been going great but i do feel that i've been able to make a few adjustments to my play that have already swung me in the right direction (cashed in 4 from the last 6 comps). The main problem was that i was simply busting to early in a lot of tournies and really not giving myself a shot. The main skill element comes deep in the tournies when applying a lot of pressure and essentially knowing when to gamble and obviously start 3 betting all in with utter filth etc. To be able to do this however you have to get there first and i certainly recognised that i was making a few to many plays early and maybe hitting the gamble button to soon. Obviously i was running quite bad which sometimes makes me want to gamble but i really should be trying to avoid getting it all in pre in the first few levels in a coin flip situation when there are so many easy double ups out there. The truth is that anyone who plays a lot of MTT's will agree that there is simply no point playing fast early on because there are so many morons out there just waiting to give it all away.
I also found that to a large extent my concentration levels were at an all time low, either i was bored, simply not paying any attention or watching tv and although playing an auto pilot stratergy is easy its certainly not the most profitable, especially when you get deep.
So anyway i'm trying to improve and am sure that a $5K payday will pop up soon. Until then i'm happy in my own head trying to make as many good decisions as i can and trying to ignore the results (some of the beats have just been disgusting).
In other non poker related shit; first i've been a lazy fucker recently very little gym or pool action and i did 100 lengths today which is standard and nearly drowned!! Sports betting is going as well as ever, lol, had $50 on Murray to win the US open at 15/1 gg me. I also put a massive $600 bet on the womens semi-finals, woooooooooops!! never betting on that retard dementieva again! Also my cheeky bet on spurs to make the top 4 is looking fantastic, the usual strong start to the season as we'll no doubt float around in the relegation zone for 3 months and then start playing sometime in 2009, the pain of being a spurs fan is just sick!
I'm half way through Harry Potter 5 which so far is quite slow but i'm still enjoying it and am proud to say that for once in my life i'm going to achieve something that i set out to do. On the music front i'm getting more and more into kings of leon, i've always liked them but they just have so many great songs and the songs i've heard from the new album are quality. On the golf front i'm shitting myself. Looks like i might not get a game in before oakhampton and despite showing signs of promise last time i played i'm nowhere near ready to compete with some of the guys and would be more than happy to go down there play ok and not finish last.
Finally i saw the full line up for the wsop final table and i hadn't realised that i played a lot of poker with 3 of the guys on the final. The American chess prodigy with the jewish name is actually the guy i ran the huge bluff on on a J J 7 flop for all the tea in china, glad to see he put my chips to good use. I'm not sure he has the game to win it but he will certainly be a threat and he was a fan of the pinkheadband so i'm behind him 100%. Its now 5am so better go to sleep £180 sat to the WSOPE event 1 tomo at gutshot which would be nice to win, gotta start running good again soon.

Long update

So i haven't done a blog for a while and i guess this is just down to a pretty poor run at the tables. Things have gone quite badly in August and its a shame to report that it will be my first losing month of 2008, boooooo!
Picking up where i left off, i played 4 of the FTOPS events and failed to cash in any of them. I never really got going in any of the comps and wasn't close to the business end of things once. A Personal highlight however was busting Mike Mattasuw out the $240 6max comp when i 4 bet him all in pre with J8 V his AA, lol.
After that was all over i headed back to thanet for folk week, which as usual was awesome. Went out every night and the town was very busy but was nice to see all the lads from home with the banter flowing as usual. The annual half pint challenge was certainly the highlight of the trip (drinking a half pint in every pub in broadstairs) and it was achieved in record pace this year, with only 2 of the 13 starters being sick, not a bad ratio at the speed we were going.
I was back in sunny London just in time for my birthday which was a quiet affair, just the way i like it. We went to a pub in Canary Wharf for a few drinks then we went to Goucho for dinner which was excellent. The fillet steak was 9/10 and the red wine was some of the best i have ever had, will certainly be back there again.
The next day was the GSOP £100 nlh which was full to the 80 capacity. I was going along quite steady up t0 12,500 from my starting stack of 8000 when i find 10 10 playing 200/400. UTG limps and after some thought i make it 1500 from the CO, button and blinds fold and after about 15 secs the limper (who i knew nothing about calls). The flop comes Q 9 3 and the guy checks so i check behind. Turn is a 10 which obviously is always a nice sight and i see an even better one when he bets 3000, i move in, he snap calls and flips QQ, gg me!
Next day was the PLO £150 which was equally annoying as i bubbled in 8th with 7 getting paid, thought i played ok getting my fair share of luck on the way but i couldn't find a good spot towards the end. A big congrats to my friend Joe for taking it down and playing a very good tourney and a very well thought out heads up match. I also had a 15% swap with him which softened the blow of bubbling.
So the warm up events were a little frustrating but was still very excited about the 3 day main event which kicked off at 2pm on saturday. Also had quite a few friends in the tourney and a few big names as well including the hit squad and nick persaud among others.
As usual my day 1 was a lot of fun. I cruised up to 28K in the first two levels on what was a pretty weak table all things considered when i decided that i wanted to play a big pot with 97 soooted, lol. I raise in ep to 550 playing 100/200 and get 3 callers, standard. Flop comes 10 8 3 rainbow, bb checks i bet 1200 the 2 behind fold then the bb makes it 3200 leaving himself 10k behind. He had been playing a little fast so i figure i'll just move him in and take it down, he calls with a set of 8's and i'm down to 13K. I then lose 9K against a moron when he check calls a bet on the flop of 10 8 8 with AQ then check calls a bet when another 8 hits the turn and then bets 3K into a big pot when the river comes a Queen and i pay him off with a 10. So i was down to 4k playing 200/400 which was a small problem however i soon got things going again when i got it all in with KJ v 7x on a 9 7 3 board, jack on the river and i'm back in the fight. I double again with 99 v AQ all in pre he flops a flush but i then hit runner runner house to get up to 16K. Finally i find QQ v AQ blind on blind to get back to 30k and i start to wonder what all the fuss was about. The rest of the day was very smooth as i found a few hand and managed to 3-bet in some good spots to end the day with 42,700.
I had about average stack at the start of day 2 with half the field left and we were playing 500/1000/100 so still had some time. Lost 10K early but got up to 60k when i had 88 v 98 on a nice 9 8 2 board and from that moment things went very well indeed. Got my stack up to 100K showing down some big hands and running a few bluffs along the way and then a guy bluffed of his 50K stack against me when i had raised the A5 and it came A 4 5. Shortly after this the strangest hand of the tourney came up playing 800/1600/200. Folds to me on the button and i make it 4500 with A7 off, sb folds then the bb calls and bets 4k in the dark!! The flop comes 9 8 8 and i figure i'm still good so i make it 11K, he calls and then shoves for his last 20K in the dark, WTF?! So the turn comes a 6 and its decision time; running through the hand i think he hasn't got an overpair or a big ace having flat called pre. I make my read that he has J10, qj or Q10 so i call saying that i think ace high is the best hand, he shows Q10 and i win a very bizarre but also a very nice sized pot. With 2 tables left porno Mark gets moved to my left with a mountain of chips so i make a conscious decision to slow down a little and try to avoid playing to many hands with him out of position, thankfully he also seems eager to avoid playing big pots with me so we take it in turns to bully the table and we make it through to the final table as the two biggest stack.
The final table was crazy, i busted in a disappointing 7th for £2200 and Porno Mark smashed it up in record time to take the title and the £12000. Before the final table we had agreed to swap some % so at least i got another £1000 for that. My key hand came up playing 2000/4000/500 when i raised to 11K pre with J10 utg. Folds round to Mark in the bb who calls, flop KQ5 with 2 hearts, he checks i bet 20K he makes it 60K and i move in for 200K more thinking that he can only call with a set, KQ or a big draw like J10 of hearts or AJ of hearts. Shame for me he had one of those hands and i was busto, I don't really regret the way i played the hand cause the stacks were deep enough for the move, oh well.
Went out for dinner and drinks with Mark and a few others after to celebrate which was a lot of fun. Mark lost 3 flips in a row for cocktails which was a nice piece of poetic justice and we ended the night in Mahiki which was a pretty awesome club with the dj banging out some classics.
So that pretty much brings my life up to date, went to Roadhouse last night and got absolutely smashed having decided that dinner is for girls and a pint of gusiness and 2 bottles of wine would be a better idea, worst hangover of 2008.
So August is nearly over and we're now moving on to good old september. I've been getting a bit lazy of late basically just jerking off money on play.com, getting up at 2pm then watching peep show, inbetweeners, green wing and good old teachers instead of doing much work. So i'm going to try and be a little bit more productive this month and try and play over 50 mtt's and a hell of a lot of stt's and maybe even win some $. I also have two massive highlights to look forward to, first is WSOPE event 1 on the 19th which is £1500 with a decent structure can't fucking wait. Also going on a lads golfing holiday to Devon right at the end of the month which should be a good laugh. I've only played 3 times this year so i'm a bit worried about my game but a couple of hours on the range and a bit of happy gilmore and tin cup should have me ready to go.

No love on Full Tilt poker.com

So it looks like fulltilt poker has not taken kindly to wendyx25 jumping on their site. I've now played 2 of their festival tournaments and busted early in both.
First up i played event 1 the $216 buy in $1 million gtd and was card dead for the hour and a half that i managed to survive for. The structure was ok with 3000 starting chips and very low blind increases: 10/20, 15/30, 20/40, 25/50, 30/60 etc so as usual i wasn't in a hurry. Had 3 or 4 low pairs and got in quite cheap everytime but no set and no win on any of these occassions. I also had AQ twice and both times it went raise then re-raise from the first two spots so i had to fold which sucks. After the break i then had 10 10 playing 50/100. Started the hand with 2100 so was ready to get it in when i raised in mp to 300, guy next to me re-raises and then the button 4 bets so i have to fold again marvelous! Finally i find AQ soooooooted in ep so i limp for 120 with 1600 behind, Co raises and sb flats so i insta jam and the Co has AK, gg sir.
Event 2 was a $216 6-handed shootout. Very little experience playing these but i found a shed load of hands early to get me going, problem was i wasn't getting paid and building a loose image so think getting AA, KK. AK, 10 10 and AA again in the first 20 hands was actually a bad thing. First big hand was playing 40/80 and folded round to the button who made it 230ish. I make it 660 with JJ hoping he'll shove which he does for 2000 total and i snap call, he has KQ and hits the flop. The same player busts me a few rounds later with his QQ v my AA, ffs gg sir!!!
So that sucks. Also played the super thursday tonight on party and lost a massive race for 20,000 chips with JJ v AK playing 300/600. It's a massive race for me cause once i get the chips on that site my record over the last year is just so so sick as anyone who knows my results will confirm.
So not a good couple of days (i'm also down $1500 playing stt's). I might play on party tomorrow night but not sure, i'm defo playing the $1m gtd on party on sunday and the $250 comp on full tilt but the fields are massive so just hope to run good and keep playing my best. Dinner with the family on saturday at a fancy restaurant and a show before, nice change from usual.

Heavy training

I use the term heavy training quite lightly in this instance. Basically i'm staying up late cause the FTOPS event 1 kicks off at 2am our time and i want to be in peak mental condition for it, well at the very least i want to be awake. Event 2 is the same time on thursday at 2am and they are both $216 so if i make it past the 2nd hour of either of these comps i want to give myself a shot or i could just get one of my flatmates to play when they get up, hmmmmmmmmmm.
I've played a bit tonight but only a few sng's and one very early exit in an MTT, up about $600 so nothing to exciting. What is exciting however is the USPGA which starts on thursday and in the immortal words of sky bet, it matters more when there's money it! I've gone for three to win bets which are a little silly but all three are playing quite well and have quite long odds: $75 on M A Jimenez at 66/1 (ship the $5K). $50 on R Goosen at 22/1 and $50 on Zach Johnson at 50/1. They also had Zach Johnson at 80/1 so i stuck $25 on that. I'm sure that all these bets seem like long shots but with no tiger it's so open and as long as 1 of my men is in with a shout on sunday i'll be a happy bunny and if its Zach Johnson that would obviously be awesome.
I've also got some bets on the US Open but that is after the Olympics so plenty of time and may change a few before the start. The one bet i will not be changing however is my $50 on big Andy Murray to take it down at 15/1, good luck getting a price better than that. It's coming up to 3am and i'm exhausted not looking good for event 1.

Close again

So i just busted out the party 300k gtd in a rather annoying 13th place for a massive $2400. It's my best ever finish in one of the big sunday comps but this is little consolation and right now i feel pretty gutted. I had a really slow start to the comp but after a couple of hours i went on fire turning 7500 into 68,000 in about half an hour, the best hand was when some donk shoved on me blind on blind with 32 off for his/her whole 22K stack playing 400/800. I snap called with JJ and from that hand on i was in my element and able to build quite easily. I got up to 420K playing 4000/8000 but i lost two big pots with AK and 1010 that i might have misplayed but not to sure. Finally busted shoving 250K playing 15k/30k blinds with A9 v AK so no complaints on that hand but i was a little disappointed with the structure. From the 3rd hour on the average stack was always around 16-18 bb's and there was very little play post flop, i rate my pre-flop game very highly but the poor structure certainly wasn't allowing me to play many flops at all and 3-betting light pre was often difficult without committing my stack.
Anyway that's 5 top 100 finishes and my number 1 goal for the rest of 2008 is to make the final of a major sunday comp. When i do i'll probs bust first hand but i don't care i just need to make one cause it's starting to really fuck me off!!
In other news i can now confirm that July was my best ever poker month winning close to $30K. It's a strange thing to say but my main emotion would have to be that of relief, it's nice to feel i have some decent cash behind me and now a couple of bad months would still suck but it wouldn't be the end of the world and i certainly wouldn't have to face the horror of getting a real job. If i had busted the main event early i would have probably tilted the $3K i had left for the trip and had to come home facing a long grind on a $7K bankroll with not a whole lot in the bank. As it happens i have a roll now in excess of $20K and enough in the bank to allow me 6 months of rent/booze/chinese food so life is all good. For some reason i can't help but think my 86 sooooooooted holding up v AQ was a sign that when it really matters the luck will always be in my corner, bring on the WSOP 2009!!
As far as the live poker goes i'm glad to say that i've now played since Vegas when last night i hit the gutshot for the £300 monthly comp. It's a shame there was only 25 runners due to the festival at the empire (that i didn't know about), but the structure was all good and the £2400 for first would have been nice. I lost 2.5K early but doubled up in the following hand: Folded round to young aggressive guy on the CO who makes it 525 playing 100/200 button and sb fold but i call from the bb with 53 sooted. Flop 3 5 9 and as usual i've smashed and i know this guy is very lag so i figure my best option is to fire at it, 750 so he thinks for 10 secs then calls and i just know this kid is floating and he has no idea that i'm any good at this game so he'll try and take it on the turn which is a 6. I think for a while then check and obviously he bets 1500 leaving himself 4K back (i had around the same) so now the question in my head is do i stick it in or just call. I think his hand might include a 7 or an 8 so i think about shoving but at the same time i know he is mega weak and i want that 4K so i think for about 30 secs and call with the intention of snap calling any river and hoping its not a 7 or 8. The river is a king and i check fast he moves in and i snap call; his hand hits the muck very quick and ship the easy double up, pweennnnnnd! After this hand things were quite easy and the early introduction of antes meant i got up to 25K without to much work when this hand goes down: folded round to me on the Co playing 300/600/50 so i'm pretty much going to open with 60-65% of hands in this spot so to look down at JJ it was actually a pleasant surprise so anyhoo i make it 1600 and the button who has me covered and been calling light all day calls again, the blinds pass and we see a juicy J 8 5 flop with two spades. I check he bets 2K, i make it 5500 total and he raises 8000 more so i ship it in and he explains he is committed (which he is) and calls with the 65 of spades. So it's the biggest pot of the tourney and i'm a 5/2 favourite which was nice, instant service for him on the turn and the river brick meant i was officially busto. It was a shame cause i was playing my absolute best and this is not always the case with me in live tournaments. I've also played the £300 twice now and on both occasions busted with a set v a flush draw but i hate blaming luck and just have to hope i can win the next one and maintain a high level of play.
So into my schedule for August which i wouldn't describe as hectic with a lot of sleeping/wanking planned but does include a little bit of 'work' as well. The bad news is that i'm not going to be able to play the GUKPT Luton as i'm not allowed back into grosvenor casinos within 6 months of finishing work, boo! I'm not sure on the date i finished but i think i'll be ok for the GUKPT Thanet in October (will have to check that at some point). I am looking forward however to the fourth annual FTOPS on full tilt which starts in a couple of days. I'm looking to play around 4-5 of the tournaments and realistically i'm just going to hope for 1 decent run as i know with the amount of runners it's going to be a bit of a slog. The buy-ins aren't to excessive however so worst case scenario i'm going to drop $1K which isn't a nightmare, i'm also not going to play at all till event 1 so i wont be tilted at all and can bring my A game every night. After that i'm going to head back to the planet that is thanet for folk week which is always a good fun so as usual hope to spend it on the beach and then in the pubs with my friends having a good old folky time and playing 0 poker. After that i'm back in London for the gutshot series of poker (GSOP). Wednesday the 20th is event 1 but is also my birthday so i'm gonna take that off and go out for a few drinks with the lads instead but nothing to major planned. The day after is event 2 the £100 nh freeze which will be fun and then friday is the £150 PLO which i'm most looking forward to, finally the 3 day main event runs from the saturday until the bank holiday monday which is a £500 with a great structure. The only problem is that the size of gutshot will mean small fields so when i get back from thanet i'm going down to gutshot with £650 to buy in for all of the tournaments and then i can spend the next 3 days relaxing before it all starts.
Ok so as far as poker goes that pretty much is the lot for the past present and future, as usual writing this has taken me off tilt so life is good. On to the non poker shit:
I'm starting to lose back the weight that i stuck on on Vegas. Been swimming most days and also been in the gym a fair bit, still eating really badly but as long as i exercise to balance this out this seems ok.
I shot through 'beneath the shades' which is a book all about the legend that is Stu Ungar. It was a fantastic read and a real insight into the man that is talked about as the greatest poker player of them all. I would recommend it to anyone, not just poker players, and it certainly was fascinating reading about the extent of his gambling and drug addictions and the way they took over his life; a sad but great story. I'm also reading 'scar tissue' by Antony Kiedis which is also a very good read and in the same way as the Stu Ungar book talks in depth about the problems caused by drugs. I'm only halfway through the book but given RHCP's status as one of the biggest bands in the world, i'm sure it will have a better ending. Finally i'm just finishing off Friends like these by Danny Wallace. It's a lot more lighthearted than the other books but still quite good. I'm not enjoying it as much as 'Yes man' or 'are you dave gorman' but i really like the authors writing style and his decision not to take life to seriously, something i feel that i can certainly relate to.

Home sweet home.

So i'm back home now after the 16 days in Vegas and on the whole i'm going to say that it's nice to be back, apart from obviously the shit weather. Its the middle of July where is the fucking sun?
Las Vegas is certainly an interesting place. Very glamorous, exciting and non stop action all over the place its also in the middle of the desert which just adds to the unique appeal of the city. Even though i enjoyed the trip and made plenty of $ i wouldn't like to be there for over a month the constant sounds of the slot machines and the over the top attidude of most of the locals quickly gets annoying and at the risk of sounding like an old man sometimes its nice to put on your dressing gown and have a cup of tea without a 40 year old waitress walking round with her top off yelling 'cocktails?'
I think the biggest regret of the trip is the fact that Will and I got to do very little outside playing poker. It would have been nice to see some more shows and go to a nightclub but the deep runs we both had in the main event prevented us from doing this.
As for the main event i still have mixed emotions. For my first go at it 191st is a great effort and i certainly am proud that i didn't change my game to much and wasn't afraid to bust at anytime. I played a few hands badly but on the whole think a played some very good poker and i really enjoyed the event from start to finish. Its just a shame A9 never wins, boooooooo. From a finacel point of few the trip was a massive success. For those of you that don't know i was staked for 80% of the main event so i only risked $2K of my own money. In total i took $3.3K over to Vegas with me and after spending a shitload on food and booze i came back with $15.4K so obviously i'm delighted with this and just as i think the month can't get any better within 2 days of being back in sunny London i have my biggest ever win online taking down the $320 $50K gtd on good old patry poker for $13.8K SHIPPPPPPPPPP IT!! I had to ship big Tony 10% for our swap (he misclicked all in v full house in the first level) but i was a nice feeling to be keeping the meat of my winnings after having to give away most of my main event gold.
Just one more piece of good news (i'm such a sick luckbox), for the first time in my life i actually won money staking. I gave $150 to my good friend Alec 'the boy' Howard to play the $30 rebuy $10K gtd and he came 2nd for $2.8K which meant he made me a nice $1350 profit. He played a very strong tourney and i think its even better making money without even playing the game.
So July is quickly becoming my favourite month poker is just going great and i'm now going to try and focus on getting rid of the weight i piled on in vegas. 10p/20p game on friday, can't fucking wait!!

Busto!!

So for both Will and myself the dream of winning the WSOP 2008 is over. I busted right at the end of Day 4 playing 6000/12000/2000 when i was down to 260K shoving with A9 over the top of a raise from late position. No problem with that play but the 500K bluff i tried to pull on a guy with an obvious over pair on a JJ7 board was a bit dumb, at the time it seemed like a good idea, lol.
Will just busted for his last 300K with 1010 v AJ all in pre finishing in a respectful 118th. Overall think we both learnt a lot and certainly enjoyed the whole thing. Next stop GUKPT LUTON!

In the money!!

So this is going fucking great!! Will and i have both made the money and he has 125K and i have 477K the blinds at the start of today are 2500/5000/500 so still have close to 100 bb's which is plenty. Yesterday was another real tough grind and was up to about 630K but got raped in the last level thanks to one bad time bluff and some russian dude kicking my ass. Its hard to describe the way i'm feeling at the moment but its a bit like every emotion i have ever felt all at the same time. Day 4 is about to start so i have to run. If i make it through the day i will put up a long blog tonight.

Day 3 here we come

I think yesterday might well have been the best day of poker that i have ever played. I started the day with 28,600 and got up to 40K early thanks to finding AK and AA early, then it got hard. Playing 250/500/50 it gets folded round to this chinese guy on the button who makes it 1400. SB folds and i call out the BB with K6 SOOOOOTED. Flop 8 7 5 and i lead for 2K just trying to pick it up. He raises to 6 and i smooth call. Turn K goes check check then when a 10 hits the river i bet 6K for value/defence and he insta raises all in for 18K more. If i called and lost i would have 3K back but this just smelt like a bluff and even though it was early i went with my instincts and called after about 30 secs, he had J8 and that was a good start for me.
Soon after the table broke and i was moved to one of the toughest tables i have ever played. I was in seat 4 and the 4 guys on my right were very strong aggressive players. The swedish player in seat 2 was very very strong player who plays 10/20, 25/50 on laddies with 200BB buy ins so the fact it was so deep stacked was a bit scary but i found some good hands to play at him with and thankfully the two players on my right (one was Liz Lieu) were the weakest on my table so i was able to play a lot from late position knowing they were gonna fold 95% of hands and i would have position.
After around 4 hours of floating between 60K-80K i managed to put a good run together playing 500/1000/100 and broke the 100K mark and then the inevitable big hand took place. The swede opens on the button for 3200 the sb calls and i make it 14K total from the BB with 1010 button calls and sb folds. Flop 5 4 3 and i bet 21K, he insta moves in for 47K more and although it was a very tough spot i thought i was committed against his range and called, he flipped K2 soooooooooted and i managed to fade the 11 outs and win the pot.
After that i ran the table, made a few hands and flopped a set of 2's V KK which tony would love and ended the day on 265K. Day 3 starts in an hour playing 800/1600/200 so lots of time to work out the table and then smash it up. Will ended his day with 91K and is playing on a table close to myn, wish us luck.

Quick post

Ok so Vegas is awesome, me and Will having a great time. Both made it through to the 2nd day of the main event. Will is playing tomo and has 34,700, he played a very solid day 1 was a bit card dead but picked his spots well. I went for a slightly different approach and decided to play about 60% of hands. Ended the day on 28,700 and am playing again on wednesday. Was 11th in chips after 4 hours with 61,000 butthis was as good as it goy. Bluffed off 25K V KK on a board of 10 10 9 8 6. O knew she had QQ-AA but she made a good call. Also bluffed 10K 5 betting QJ v AK on a board of K 8 2 which sucked. Ran QQ into KK for 12K pot and at one stage was down to 11K but got my stack in at 200/400/50 with 86 Sooooooooted v AQ after a raise and a call and as we all know the 86 will never lose.

Cash is going well up about $500 and played 1 very sick hand V Brewin with J6 sooooooooted v A10 on a 9 7 7 board playing $2/5. long story short i check flop, he bets 85 into 100 pot i make it 200, he makes it 400 more and i push for 650 more knowing he was full of shit, lol!

Food is great, banter is better. Had the pleasure of meeting Kara Scott on the first night who is the fittesr woman i have ever seen also met the voice of datrs Sid widdel on the plane what a legend. Will post after day 2 i hope, wish me luck.

I love sports betting

The simple problem is that i'm not very good at it. Down about £350 on Euro 2008 and the last few days have been the worst of the tournament, lost £100 on the Italy v Spain game and my £30 bet on Croatia to win the comp at 14/1 was looking awesome until Turkey scored in the last minuet and then won the shootout. Think i'm now going to switch my attention to Wimbledon and hope this goes a little better.
In other news i was reminded last week of why i love living in London so much. Went to a silent disco in south bank on thursday which was loads of fun. I hadn't been to one before and was a little sceptical but as it goes we all had a good time my only regret is the massive hangover i had on the friday. Thankfully i had just recovered in time to attend my sisters 24th on the Saturday, which started in a bar in Angel and ended in a Karaoke bar in Farringdon. Once again not a regular night out for me but the place was well set out with a central bar/dance floor and a number of private side rooms for the karaoke each holding parties of between 8-40. All of my sisters friends from work seemed really cool and have always got on with her friends from home so had no problem making a total twat out of myself; why change the habit of a lifetime, and would have to say that hello by Lionel Richie was a personal highlight.
Will just write a few quick words of congtars to my mate Will for coming 11th in the GBPT Bristol. I'm sure he was dissapointed not to make the final but its still a good result and good practice for the WSOP main event.
Now onto my own poker playing of which i have some good news. Managed to chop the $20K gtd on party last night for $4.6K/$4.3K, certainly a well timed win. The weird thing was that i had no intention of playing the comp but logged in at 11.58 saw the comp was seating and just thought wtf might as well. It certainly felt a bit like fate through the first 50 mins of the comp where i went from 3K to 12K thanks to some serious donkey play from my opponents and 1 cold deck with 22 v QJ on a JJ2, SHIP IT.
So things were going great when this pot took place:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2795161

Ouch!! Obviously the beat hurt but his stack size made it that little bit more painful. Went a bit card dead after this hand but managed to survive for a while and then got lucky to double with AQ V AK all in pre. Another fortunate hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2795166

This hand is so very lucky for a number of reasons the sb could very well have had a hand like 77 - 1010 which obviously has me in a load of trouble. When the bb raises he must have a big hand so to be up against AK with the dead money was awesome. Tournaments are crazy, 1 sec i've got 5000 playing 300/600 then a few hands later i have 35,000 playing 400/800, insane.
This is the worst hand i played all comp:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2795174

I open light which is standard and have no problem with but the call in the middle gives me a tough decision when it gets back to me. I can't fold cause obviously to much in there so i have to raise the other guy all in or call. I made the wrong choice but at the time was thinking i can just call hope to get lucky and also the fact i'm out pf position is not important cause he is unlikely to bluff me with the other player all in. Obviously i make the value bet on the river but the sick thing was i worked out he had KQ as soon as i made the bet, not to sure how but when he moved in i was pissed off. The 1 good thing about the hand is that a year ago i would have said ffs you have KQ i call, i was annoyed by the hand but the fold on the river allowed me to save some crucial chips.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2795177

This hand got me going. The guy had been raising a fair bit and c betting most of the time so i figured i could well be winning on the flop and also could well bluff him off 99-kk on the turn. As it turns out he did have an ace and i got the miracle river, who said poker was a game of luck?

From that hand on i got into full swing and started running the comp playing very Lag and loving every second of it, couldn't help myself:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2795181

So at this stage of the comp there were about 14 left and from here to the final table i got a lot of chips together and managed to build a bit of a lead on the field. When the final started had 35% of the chips. This next hand is a weird one:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2795185

The sick thing is that if he moves in i would probs just move in over the top but the size of the raise was filthy and my gut said AA, guess we'll never know.

Busting 2 short stacks:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2795186

From this hand to 3 handed things were quite easy some of the players were quite waek and was able to pick up a lot of chips at 2000/4000 and 3000/6000 with very few people ever playing back at me. The only real threat was FaxEmpoker who played very well all comp so i was a little worried when this hand took place:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2795196

Got them all back:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2795199

The guy busted a few hands later so when the heads up started i had him 550K v 70k but this changed with 2 back to back all in pre hands Q9 V 76 and A4 V 88 both of which i lost. When he offered a deal i had a slight chiplead but he had the momentum so i went for it like the girl i am.
Nice to win some $ before vegas and wont be able to play that much before hand so doubt i will blog until i'm day 1 chipleader, one time!