Finishing strong

I'm going to start off with a fairly obvious statement, 'there is nothing you can do to change the past'. This little nugget of information is particularly important for poker players. There is nothing i can do to change the decisions i've already made. All i can do is keep on learning from my mistakes and look forward to what really counts, the future.

This year has been a fairly disappointing one for me professionally. I'm going to look into facts, figures and reasons in my end of year blog but in the meantime let's just say that i'm looking forward to putting this year behind me and moving forward to 2010. That isn't to say that i haven't had a fun-filled, awesome year, i have, but from a poker perspective things could have obviously gone better.

The good news is that i'm finishing the year strong. I had my best ever month online in November winning $19K. I ran super hot obviously but i honestly think it was the best i've ever played online. I didn't tilt for more than 10 minutes the entire month and only played 2 sessions where i thought i wasn't playing close to my 'A' game. Ironically they were both sessions where i won over $1K. One of the most important lessons i've learnt this year is that just because you have a winning session it doesn't automatically mean you played well.

I also played my final live event of the year, the £3K GUKPT final at the Vic. For some reason i decided to play day 1A which only got 58 runners. I had a really strong table draw but ran really well in the first 3 levels, moving my 20K starting stack up to 80K. I basically just won all the big hands i played which is always nice; flopped a set of 9's v AK on a A9x and won a huge pot and then made a straight v's a set for the chiplead. Unfortunately i only ended the day with 46K thanks to losing QQ v 77 aip for 35K pot, KJ v J8 aip for 25K pot and 55 v AQ aip for 15K pot, fml!

Anyway i again got off to a great start on Day 2 winning KK v AK aip for 100K on like the 8th hand of the day. At that point i really though it could finally be the time for a big score. Then a couple of hands later i lose that 50K back again when i run AJ into JJ on a J10x with two diamonds. The guy was clearly on tilt from playing a hand terribly an orbit before but unfortunately for me he was tilting with top set!!

I then lose 1010 v A6 aip for 70K pot at 1K/2K and finally bust shipping A9 in and running into AK. On the whole i would say that on my 4 appearances on the tour this year i played decent once, really well twice and great in Manchester. I'm quite a bit down on live events this year but with so few hands played all i can do is keep sticking in the money and hope the fact that i play much better than 90% of all live fields, (apart from WSOPE and $25K wpt champ), can result in a nice payday soon.

Plan for December is just to grind as hard as i can and maintain my level of play from last month. If i can do that long term then i know this whole poker thing might just work out.

Running Hot

I've made a conscious effort to try and play a lot more poker over the next few months and things have started rather well. I'm +$14K so far this month and obviously loving life at the moment. I'm running really good but playing a lot of great poker, staying really focused and not even looking like tilting at all.


Today was one of my best days of poker ever. I only played 1K hands of $2/4 but ran my nuts off and managed to book a +$3K day:

I know that this hot streak will have to end at some point but if i can maintain this level of play over the next 4-6 months i will be a very happy camper.

Along with playing more poker i've also been thinking about ways to improve my game and most importantly my profit. I'm playing less tables, shorter sessions and i'm even back watching vids on leggo. I've got some financial goals that i would like to hit before the end of February and at the moment i'm well on target.

Not much going on in my life outside of poker right now but for the rest of the cold winter i'm hoping this hot streak can keep me warm.

A few thoughts

I haven't posted anything on my blog for a while so i thought it might be a good time for a cheeky update. I really want to be able to look back at this thing in the years to come and be proud that i stuck with it and maintained a high level of honesty throughout. Anyone that knows me will recognise that i joke around all the time and talk a lot of crap. One of the best things about keeping this page is that i always feels i can write down my true feelings about anything and everything and i really don't care who reads it.



I've now been back home for 6 weeks and on the whole i'm very happy to be back. As expected i had a fantastic time in Okehampton with the lads. My golf was pretty shocking and rather disappointingly i did end up with the much feared Wooden Spoon. My biggest frustration was that i actually started out playing well and thought i was hitting the ball fine. I then started to crumble on day 2 and eventually my putting really cost me. For some reason i've been missing a huge amount of short putts over the last 2 years and it's starting to piss me off. Atleast i really understand the meaning of the old saying, 'driving for show, putting for dough', the trip was an expensive one!! Still can't wait to get back next year and do it all again. The banter was fantastic and at the risk of blowing my own trumpet my drinking performance on the night out in Exeter was world class, i was shit hammered!! Just going to give a quick congrats to my hero Big Cheese for taking down the title for the second year in a row. His last round was superb and even though i don't think Ben is the best golf in the group his mental edge is huge and he is certainly the best at producing under pressure, (yes i do know how gay this is all sounding!).

Unfortunately i didn't play the WSOPE. I was really excited about it but the buy-in was huge and i couldn't quite manage to sell off enough of my action in time. I could have played it but it would have been risking far to much of my own money. Undoubtedly one of the best skills i have learnt as a poker player is bankroll management and i'm proud i was able to show that in this case. I did play the EPT though but things didn't go that well. I had a really fucking easy day 1 table and even though i was card dead most of the day i was able to go on a heater in the last level and move my starting stack of 30K up to 70K. I came back for day 2 full of confidence but i got a hard table and ran bad in big pots. The worst player on the table was running his nuts off and for some reason i was getting really frustrated by this. I was really harsh on him to his face but i'm not proud of how i acted and i actually regret my behaviour. I think it was a combination of things but overall live poker has been really hard on me this year and i think i just needed to let off some steam. I'm not making excuses though and i never want to behave like such a Juvenal moron ever again in a high profile event, i'll save it for the 10p/20p home games from now on. Anyways i busted when i re-shipped it all in with 23bb's with A10, he didn't take long before calling me with KK and once again i was left to deal with another failure in 2009.

I got staked for most of the EPT by my friend Kanu as gutshot decided i hadn't put enough work in to merit them sticking in the £5K. I think that the decision was a correct one as i have done very little for them but the whole situation is getting a bit annoying. I really can't be asked to do the stuff they want me to do but the guy running it is keen for me to still be involved. We'll have to see what happens on this one but as usual i'm not taking things to seriously.

My results online have been swingy but are certainly improving. Things got off to the worst possible start when i got home and i think i lost about$6K in the first few weeks. Since then things have been going much better and this has been aided with a couple of really spewy heads- up opponents that have been more than generous with their contributions to the Ed Roger foundation, happy days! I've set myself a target of how much money i want to make by the end of February and so far i'm off to a great start. I'm planning on grinding as hard as i can over the next few months and am trying to concentrate on maintaining a high level of play over long periods of time. My volume has been quite pathetic so far this year but i'm really looking to finishing with a bang.

Despite the increased volume i'm still obviously aware of the need for good balance in my life. I've been swimming and running a couple of times a week since my return home and am hoping i can stick with it. My diet however has been as crap as ever so this is defiantly something to work on. I've also got some books to read along with 24 season 3 and Dexter series 1 to keep me entertained. Doubt i'll blog again until the end of the year, lots of long hard grinding to do this winter.

Airports are boring!!

I'm currently in the 6th hour of my 15 hour stay at Auckland International airport. We flew up from Christchurch this afternoon and got in at 4pm, our next flight to Hong Kong is at 6am tomorrow morning so we just decided to hang out here instead of going to a hotel. I have to say that airports really aren't that fun! The worst thing is that the computers here won't let me on any poker sites so i can't even grind out the time. My second option would be to get on the source but i'm feeling really groggy right now and the flight is sooooo early. On the up side they do have a number of high quality restaurants to keep me entertained. I've already had 2 Mcdonald's meals and a big plate of chicken noodles. I'm feeling a little full at the moment but i might be able to slip in one more meal before bedtime.
When we finally get to Hong Kong, (12 hour fucking flight!), we have about 30 hours to kill before our flight back to sunny London. Thankfully Juliet has some friends who used to live there so we have a few reccomendations about where to go and what to see etc.
In all honesty i'm looking forward to getting home. I've really enjoyed the last couple of months but there is a lot i'm starting to miss. I also have a ton of cool stuff coming up in the next few weeks that i'm looking forward to. Firstly our trip golf trip to Okehampton should be a lot of fun. I have hardly played this year so i'm really hoping i don't come last. The general banter and gambling should be up to it's high standard though so i'll have a great time even if i play crap.
I think we get back from golf on the 23rd and then i get to play WSOPE main event on the 26th, yipee!! I'vc never played this tourney but am looking forward to it. The structure is awesome and the competitor inside me is loving how tough the field is. In my opinion it's the strongest field on the current poker calender and you really need to play your ass off to go deep in this one, not much dead money out there. Despite this i still think that i can compete and am just hoping to run good for the first time in a tourney this year. Just in case your wondering i have 35% of myself.
After i ship the WSOPE i'm getting staked by gutshot for EPT London. This is obviously another big tourney on the poker circuit and again i'm very much looking forward to playing. Having hardly played recently i'm missing the game loads and can't wait to get right back in the deep end.
I was going to do a quick review of the best things i've done along with the books i have read and the films i've seen on my travels but i think i'll save those for my next blog. I really don't enjoy flying these days and the thought of spending 24 hours on a plane over the next few days is tilting me hard!

Life is good

It's been a while since i put up a blog. The main reason for this is that the main theme of this page is poker. I haven't played a great deal and therefore have limited things to report.

I'm well and truly over the disappointment of Las Vegas. Things went really badly for me out there and although i hate to admit it, i think that i could have played better. One of the hardest things to do is to play your best game all the time, no matter how your luck is. In retrospect i would have done a few things differently and there were certainly times where i played like a tilted Mongoloid.

Despite this i'm trying to take the positives from the experience. I'll certainly go back a better player next year and will be trying hard to play my best the whole way through. I'm also proud that even though i cashed for $0 my bankroll management was really good and i'm pretty much in the same fiancel shape as i was before the series.

As far as online poker goes things have been ok. I was on a $6K downswing in Australia which sucked donkey dick but thankfully i have won that all back now, yipee!! I'm not going to play again until i get back to London and then i'll be grinding hard for a few months. I'll be playing mostly $2/4 hu when i get home but i'm really hoping i can crush it for a while and take a shot at $5/10 by the end of the year.

My last piece of poker news is that i've changed my name on party for the first time in 4 years. I'm now playing under DRC0CKnBA11S which is a reference from my new favourite tv show, Eastbound and down.

Travelling has been a lot of fun so far. Juliet and I flew up to Cairns and then hired a camper van and drove all the way down the east coast. It was about 3000Km but we had 17 days so it only worked out to an average of 2 hours driving per day. The highlights were without doubt the sailing trip around the Whitsundays, the chicken nugget challenge straight afterwards and the smash up in Byron bay. We had a really good group of people on our sailing trip which made it a lot of fun. I also really enjoyed Scuba diving on the great barrier reef and would recommend it to anyone. Even though it's winter over here the weather has still been great, sunny and clear most days so nothing to complain about on that front.

We went out for my Birthday last night which was fun. We went to this karaoke bar with a load of my sisters friends from work, after that we went to a cool bar but having consumed a ton of alcohol my sister was soon removed. She then proceeded to chuck up in the cab on the way home, thankfully he only charged us $30. In London that could have been a lot worse. We ended up getting home very early but i still had a fun night all the same. It did make me miss home a bit though, especially my girlfriend and all the lads. Think one of the main things that i've taken from this trip is that life is much more about people than places. You can have a good time anywhere as long as your with the right people.

Got a flight to New Zealand tomorrow morning at some ridiculous hour. I'm really looking forward to heading over there because i've heard a lot of great things about the place. My sister is coming with us for the first week and that should be fun. We're going Skiing for the first week and then have 2 weeks to make our was up to the North Island before we fly to Hong Kong on the 12th of September. We have a night there and then back home on the 14th. Life is good.

First part done

The good news is that i have made day 2 in the WSOP main event, yipeee!!! Thought it might be a good idea to write up a quick update before day 2 just explaining a few hands.

I basically ran like shit for the first 3 levels, thankfully we started with 30,000 chips and the levels were 50/100, 100/200 and 150/300. If your going to run bad then this is obviously a good time to do it. The first decent sized pot was at 50/100 with AK off (as Cashy will tell anyone i do not play this hand well); i raised to 275 utg +1 and get 3 callers. Flop came A J 6 with 2 hearts, bb checks as do i and the dude in middle position, the button bets 600 which folds out the other two guys and i call. The turn is a 5 and i check call a bet of 1800. River is a 6 which does not complete the flush, i check call a bet 4000 and he shows 65, good start. I didn't love his bet on the river but i think having massively underrepresented my hand i couldn't really fold. I'm repping KK or QQ really well and would expect him to bet a lot of missed draws and bet worse aces on the river for value. I spent the rest of the first level folding, raised AQ, got 3 bet fairly big and mucked pre and gave up on Q3 of spades when i raised and got 3 callers then missed the flop. The table was fairly solid and noone was playing that badly, the young guy on my left ran super hot and seemed to play well. He was opening quite a few hands but instead of getting involved in a pointless lag war in the first level i hust folded the crap i was being dealt, ended the level with 24.5K stack thanks to winning a few small pots at the end.

The second level also failed to go as planned. I felt i had a fairly good feel for the table at this point so i played a few more hands but unfortunately my opponents were making a lot of hands against me and i was being shutdown fairly early. The biggest pot i played was with 75 of clubs when it got folded round to the cut off who raised to 600, i made it 1700 from the sb and he snap called. He seemed fairly nervous and not that great so at this point i was sure he had 99-JJ or AQ, maybe AJ suited at a push. so the flop came 442 and i bet 3000, he called without thinking and now i know he has a decent sized overpair and is calling quickly to actually avoid thinking about the hand. Turn was a 3 giving me a straight draw and i check folded when he bet 5K, at the time i was close to check shoving but i really felt like he would have cry called, somehow managed to convince myself that i have a huge edge in this tournament and shoving into an obvious overpair would be fairly retarded. I ended the level with 19.5K.

The third level saw me pick up some big hands, the bad news was the other players were picking up bigger ones. Twice i raised QQ, got called and check folded an A K x flop. I also raised AQ and folded to a 3-bet and JJ and folded to a 3-bet, both times i felt like they were super strong and both times i was shown KK. Obviously by this point i was steaming a little, nothing was going my way and i felt like a day 1 Knockout was almost inevitable, i then pick up the Ant Yousefian hand 22 and my spirits lift. UTG raises to 800 i call on the button as does the bb. The flop comes with 45Q 2 spades and we check through. The turn is the Q of spades and after the bb check the original raiser bet 1200. I felt he was super weak here and almost defiantly had a pair between 66-JJ or even ace high so i raise to 3600, he calls. The river was the 3 of spades and he checks fairly fast. I felt like i simply needed to win this hand and bet 7000, leaving myself with 7.5K if called. After a horrible 3 minutes he folded, thankfully i had my i've got the nuts face on. This was the only decent sized pot that i won in the first 3 levels and spent the next 30 mins losing a couple of thousand back, finished the level with 24K.

Shortly into the fourth and final level i was moved table and i caught the hot streak that i felt my patience deserved. I managed to win a few pots without showdown and then i raise to 825 UTG playing 150/300/25. The cut off called, as did the button and the bb. Flop hit KJ3 with 2 hearts and i c-bet 1725, the Co folded and the button called, bb folded. Turn was a blank 6 and i decided to barrel thinking that he would fold anything that wasn't a king or better and i bet 3775, he called and the river came another blank 7. I checked and after a while of thinking he checked back, he had Q9 of hearts and i won a big pot with ace high, putting me up over 35K. He was thinking of shoving the river for 11K and the honest truth is my instinct was to call and i tend to always go with my instinct. I didn't think he would bet one pair for value in that spot and thought he would raise 2 pair on the flop, really thought he had Q10 off or a worse flush draw. We will never know if i would have called but i'm 90% sure i would have done. Anyway shortly after this i busted the same gut with AQ v 1010 when i raised and after 1 guy called he re-shoved for 8K total, thought he could have a ton of hands in that spot and i was surprised he was that strong, anyway i won a flip for the first time at the 2009 WSOP. Next i called a bet from the sb with QQ after a guy in mp raised to 1200, (felt he was super strong pre). Flop came Q67 2 flush and he bet 2k after i checked, i then made it 6K and he shoved for 10K more, snapppppppppppppppp!! He showed AA and i won. After that was taking hands for fun, loads of people trying to make day 2 and no one else any good on my table so i ran things for the last half an hour, chipping up all over the place. I also got a bit of coverage from ESPN so would be good to make the tv coverage this year, one time. Ended the day with 71K and about 3 double vodka red bulls inside me. This Aussie on my table thought it would be a good idea to get on it and i wasn't in the mood to turn down $1 drinks. Roll on day 2.

Half empty of half full

There are two ways that i can look ay my current situation: 1) I havn't cashed in a single tourney, I'm spewing off way to much money on shit, I'm having a losing month. 2) I havn't played that many tournies, the main event is coming up, i still have positive expectation in any tourney or any cash game i'm rolled for.

As far as my life outlook goes i think it has to be the second option. I've been running bad in Vegas but i really havn't played that many hands yet and am still hoping that things can turn around in the upcoming weeks. I'm playing a $1500 on saturday and then anothr one on monday so they are my last chance for a decent score before the main event. In the last bracelet event i played things went a little better. I made the dinner break and managed to get up to 18K at one point from the 4.5K starting stacks. Things went badly from here however and i eventually got cold decked before running a shortstack shove into KK. I also played a $330 deepstack at the venetian yesterday and got a guy to stick 130 bb's in pre with AQ v's my AK, flop K 7 3, turn Q, river Q, horrible way to lose but life moves on.

Life in the house is still fun, my diet has been shocking so far on this trip but this was to be expected. Hope to eat better and exercise a bit more when in Australia. Started playing heads up online a bit more and am finding it quite exciting. Think playing every hand certainly suits my style but havn't run that well so breaking even at the moment.

Having Fun

So the bad news is that the last tournament went worst than the first one. I started out really well, playing fast and making a few hands early to get up to 7K from my 4.5K starting stack. From then on however everything went wrong. I ran AA into 86 on a 88x board and lost a bit then fired 3 barrels with J5 on a JJ104K board. Was called all the way down to be shown Q9, nice call on the turn sir!! Finally i ran KQ into AQ on a on a queen high flop before shoving a shortstack 56 into A9, oh well. The good news is that i'm happy with every decision that i have made so far in the two tournaments, sometimes it just isn't meant to be. I'm playing another $2K event tomorrow so hope that one goes well and i can have a deep run.

In other news everything in the house is fine. Just spending a lot of time chilling playing a massive pool tournament and drinking lots of beer. Played golf today and lost $300 on silly betting but still had fun. Didn't play great on the front nine but to my great suprise found some of my best form on the back to shoot 42 which was +7. I also hit 4 or 5 shots with my Sw that were fucking awesome so happy with that.

Ouch!!

Just busted out of my first event, the $2K NLH. Had a fairly tight table and not much happened in the first 2 levels until right at the end when i got in 2400 playing 50/100 against a shortstack with J10. He hit the flop and after that was down to 3.5K from my 6K starting stack. Thankfully i doubled soon after this when i slowplayed AA and then got it in v JJ on a 10 high flop. Chipped up after this hand to 10K before running QQ into a shortstacks KK.
My bustout hand was pretty sick. Playing 100/200/25 a bigstack who had been play quite loose but very badly opened UTG to 600. Three players called and when i looked down at KQ on the button decided it was a good spot to squeeze and made it 2600 total. UTG called and the rest folded, we saw a J108 board and he put me in for my last 5400. I called and he showed up for AQ which was one of the worst hands i could see and pretty terible play from him. Anyway i missed and he ships the 18K pot with ace high.
$1500 tomorrow so hope to go better in that one.

Greetings from Las Vegas

I'm very aroused!!! Landed here in Las Vegas yesterday and can't wait to get playing my first wsop event of 2009.

As usual the flight was shit. I'm not a great flyer at the best of times but being on my own and the bad turbulence made it a bit of a nightmare. I'm also a really moody flyer which makes it difficult to enjoy the entertainment. I watched Milk and Valkyrie which were both quite good but i'm sure i would have enjoyed them a lot more if the screen was bigger, sound was better and i wasn't constantly thinking about plunging to my death from 30 thousand feet.

Moving quickly on, the house is awesome. Five double rooms, A+ Pool table and a really nice swimming pool outside. The weather is ideal. It's hot but not as crazy as last year so i spent yesterday outside just lapping up the sun and trying my best to stay awake. I'm already -$60 on the pool table playing $20 a rack but hoping i can improve on my 2-5 record throughout the holiday.

One good thing that has come out of my current lifestyle is the ability to deal with jetlag. Despite only getting 3 hours sleep on the friday and not sleeping on the plane, i was able to stay up till 10pm saturday night, (which would be 6am UK time). I was then able to sleep 9 hours and get up at 7am this morning. My first event is tomorrow at noon so the plan is to stay up till midnight tonight, get another 9 hours and then get to work. I'll be writing tourney reports on my gutshot blog as well as on this one. The only difference is on this blog i will be writing tons of random crap as well. If you only really care about the poker side of things just click on the link from one of my previous posts and that will take you to my gutshot blog.

Before i go i just want to say that Newquay was epic!! Although we didn't see more than 5 hours of sun in 4 days the drinking and general banter was fantastic and the dressing up was hilarious. My body has just about got over it but drinking that amount in four days is quite a challenge and probably not a good idea. Personal highlights include the all round performance of Michael Alp, the dressing up of big tone, Brad Larks 10/10 ipod and Tom 'the ranger' Parkinson asking if he can do a girl up the arse that he had met 2 days before, kids these days!!

A few thoughts

It's 1.40am, i can't sleep and i'm not in the mood to play any poker. I thought it was time for a blog entry.

This month has been up and down so far but i've only played about 8K hands, time will tell if it's a good one or not. I'm going home this weekend so planning on playing a lot this week and hope to reach my rather modest aim as far as how much $ i want to make before i head to Vegas. I want to take about $7K over with me but the money i leave behind is more important than the money i take; (not sure if that made any sense). Anyway if the worst case scenario occurs and i fail to cash in a single wsop event i want to make sure that i come back to a healthy role and not have to worry about grinding to hard or even think about going broke and getting one of those job things i'm always hearing about.

I've mentioned a lot in previous posts about how important i think maintaining a balance in your life is. A lot of poker players simply get addicted and lose focus on other aspects of there life, becoming increasingly consumed by greed and the desire for wealth. I want to become a successful poker player, i want to be respected and i want to make a lot of money from the game but those aims should never be achieved at the expense of my friends and family; nor should they come about through me changing as a person. I'm proud of who i am and think for the time being i have a really good balance in my life. One guy who seems to sum up these thoughts is a player called Hoss_TBF; he plays the very highest limits but at the same time seems a really down to earth guy who has a lot of good things going in his life outside a very successful poker career:

http://hoss-tbf.livejournal.com/

His blog is a really good read and is one that i've been following for a while now, would give away my right arm if i could get where he is within the next 3 years.

Think i might be ready for bed now, will blog before i go to Vegas at some point.

new post at last

As you may have noticed i havn't updated this blog for ages and i have a lot to write about. Firstly i'm going to mention that i'm now a sponsored 'gutshot pro'; I'm getting £20K in tournament buy-ins and i get to keep 50% of my profit with 0 make up. I can play 3 GUKPT's, EPT London and then i can spend the other money on the tournaments i want. In return i have to make some videos, post on the forum and blog the tournaments that i play for them on the site:

http://www.gutshot.com/bforum/blog.php?u=21969

The reason that i havn't blogged for ages is firstly i'm a lazy shit and secondly we were unable to get the internet going in the new house for 3 weeks. Overall the move has been fine, i have a bigger room, we have a little garden and all in all i like this place better than the last (even though it's just round the corner).

With no internet at home my opportunities to play online have been limited. Just realised that i havn't even put my graph up for March:

Once again it was an up and down month but obviously i'm glad that once again it was a profitable one. Breaking even after 25K hands sucked but thankfully managed to end the month well and ship some $. I've now played anout 15K hands of 400nl and am up about 10 buy-ins. This is fairly break even but winning a ton at 200nl this year so even if i do jerk off some cash i'm very confident that i can grind it back lower down.

With the internet down i've been playing quite a few live tournaments over the last couple of months. I played 3 comps at the start of March at the international for the Spring poker festival and unfortunately i was unable to get much going. I kept drawing really solid tables that made chip accumulation tough and when the blinds got high i would lose a flip or just run into big hands so i didn't get a single deep run, booooooo.

I have however managed 2 deep runs in both the GUKPT events that i have played recently. The tournament in London was a strange one, i played day 1b and for the first 5 levels i couldn't find many spots to make chips and found myself with about my starting stack at the start of 200/400/25. Anyway the first hand of this level i find QQ Utg and playing an 11K stack i start to think how can i get my chips in the middle, i make it 1050 and a guy in mp who also started the hand with about 11K makes it 3K total. At this point i think shoving is obviously standard, online it is just easy but i looked at the guy and he looked so strong and i thought about his raise (why make it 3K and not shove?); i thought he had me crushed so i told him that i was folding and begged to see his hand, after some persuasion he showed AA and i tabled QQ, hero folds are fun.

After that great laydown the poker gods decided to reward me with some hands. I won KQ v K6 when a shortstack shoved and then 3 bet shoved against James Keys with AQ V his A10 to get up to 30K. Once this happened i was able to raise a lot wider and managed to make a few hands and win a few small pots with air against some weak players, i finished the day with 55K about to start 600/1200/100 and was just over average stack.

At the start of day 2 things went from good to great when i managed to get my whole stack in pre flop with AA v 1010 to get over 100k. I then got moved to a really weak table and despite losing a huge pot with a straight flush draw v an overpair i was able to build up to 160K without any real problem. Then this hand came up with 45 left:

Playing 1500/3000/200 a guy in Ep limped (200k stack), mp calls as well (80K ish stack) and the sb calls (200k stack). I make it 12k more from the bb with and to my surprise they all call. Flop comes J106 and after the sb checks i cbet 25K. Ep calls and other 2 fold. Turn is an 8 and i check call a 30K bet and the river brings a 9 . I bet 50K and he puts me in for 40K ish more which i call. He flips KQ for the nuts, gg me.

I'm not upset at how i played the hand but the river is just so brutal as i'm check calling a brick, if an ace hits i can check fold and if a king hits he wasn't good enough to value bet so i'm winning the hand or not losing anymore chips. When he flipped his hand i felt sick but what can you do? Congratulations to Jambon for finishing 4th and making it to final tables out of two.

After the London event i was gutted but i didn't have to wait a long time to have another deep run, finishing 8th at GUKPT Manchester in my first major tournament as a gutshot pro. I'm going to be writing a pretty long report on my blog over there so i'm not going to go into any specific hands here but i'm just going to say that having started the final as chip leader and being the best player at the table by a distance finishing 8th was like being kicked in the balls, it still hurts two days later.

One thing that the last few months has taught me is that live tournaments are still the strongest part of my game. I have a big edge over the live players because most of them, even some of the pros, have no idea how to play there stack size and struggle to play after the flop and i feel i have an edge over a lot of Internet players who struggle to adjust to the pace of a live tournament and simply do not have the abilty to read there opponents. I'm now really looking forward to Las Vegas and really hoping i can have a big score at the series this year. Here is a list of the tournaments that i'm planning on playing:

Monday 15th June: 12 noon (US time) $2K NLH

Tuesday 16th June: 12 noon $1500 NLH

Thursday 18th June: 12 noon $2K NLH

Saturday 20th June: 12 noon $1500 NLH

Saturday 27th June: 12 noon $1500 NLH

Monday 29th June: 12 noon $1500 NLH

Sunday 5th July: 12 noon $10K NLH Main event.

So basically as you can see its no limit holdem all the way for me this year. I'm playing $20K worth of buy ins but Jambon is staking me for most of it so i'm going to buy about $6K of myself in total. The starting stacks are 3 times the buy-in this year and the clock is still an hour so even in the $1500 events there is still a bit of play. The fields will be huge but as long as i can stay focused and take it 1 decision at a time i'm sure that a deep run in one or two of the side events is on the cards. As for the main event the structure is so good and so much of the field is so weak that busting day 1 with my style of play would have to mean that something has gone badly wrong, let's hope another in the money finish is on the cards.

Grinding away

As you can see from the graph above february wasn't quite as successful as January in terms of winnings or consistency. I ended up making $5.7K over nearly 45K hands but after getting out the blocks like a greyhound i ended up breaking even for a long period; truth be told i'm a little disappointed.
Two things that i am happy about are my attitude and the the fact that i increased my volume, i'm playing a fair bit these days and still enjoying the challenge of 6 max. I constantly tried new things when breaking even, my playing style, the number of tables i was playing etc but looking through the hands i'm still tilting to often and still making to many mistakes. Having said that i ran pretty badly at times and i think a couple of months ago i may have even have had a losing month with the cards i was dealt because at times it was just brutal. Still i'm happy to have had another winning month and badly want to win $10K in March, i'm still going to be playing mostly $1/$2 this month but i have the bankroll for 2/4 and even 3/6 so if i can get up on the month early i may well look to stop being a fairy boy and move up sooner rather than later.
My live poker was fairly limited in february as it was bloody cold outside and leaving the flat is a pain in the arse. Joe and i went back up to Nottingham to once again donate to the monthly £300 two day event at Dusk till Dawn, the structure of the tourney is excellent and most of the players are terrible but as usual i was unable to take advantage of these important facts. I thought i played decent again but as far as live poker goes if gutshot/the international is my party poker then DTD is without doubt my fulltiltpoker.net! It just seemed like in every big hand i played it was me facing the big decision to call or fold, i never had the hand that was value betting/ bluffing it was always does he have my strong hand beat? I made some big folds and one great call but i felt a bit like Negraneu on high stakes poker constantly facing bets, AK when it came 99k9x obviously he has called my raise with 97 off or AA on a 10 9 6 3 2 rainbow having played the hand passive and he shows up with 66. In the end i busted in the fourth level, i didn't give up this time but no matter how bad the opposition are in these things to make a run in a tournament you need a little luck along the way.
My second live trip of the month was the fourth annual Reading series of poker last weekend. The fun started at big cheese's place on thursday night with a darts tournament; i once again scored ok but my inability to hit a double resulted in an early exit with Ben running out the eventual winner with a 3-2 victory of Futon Mike in the final. From there we hit the golf course on friday morning and to my great surprise i actually played well. All in all it was one of the most enjoyable rounds of my life, the weather was great and the other 3 guys i played with (Ben, Liam and Cashy) all had good rounds so the standard was fairly high. Liam took down the 7 man stableford competition with 46 points (good for £70) and i ended up in 3rd with 36. I also won £15 off cheese in sidebets and £60 (main event buy in) off cashy by beating him by 1 shot and another £10 for beating cashy and big cheese at doubles playing with Liam 'the bandit' Kelly. Having played so poorly in SA it was nice to play some solid golf and am now looking forward to my next game.
After golf we headed back to the hotel to check in and grab a shower before the £20 IHO comp that evening. It was great to see some of the lads from uni again and spent much more time drinking and fucking about than playing to seriously. It was no surprise that i busted after a couple of hours and quickly increased my consumption of alcohol to catch up with the few lads that managed to bust before me. Soon most of us were busto and headed straight down to spoons to meet up with even more people and soon it was 15 lads round a table getting well and truely on it; it isn't to hard to guess what happened next. Anyway after we were removed from the premises we soon bundled into bar risa and quickly hit the dance floor, i was off my face by this time and remember a lot of dancing and a lot of hugging other pissed up sweaty men but not a lot else; the night was rounded off by the group splitting; half into the chicken shop and half into the srtipclub, for once i was in the cool half off the group and soon paid up £20 for a lovely young lady to rub her melons in my innocent face.
One hangover later and minus the big cheese (worst man with a hangover ever!) we got ready for day 1 of the RSOP main event. Long story short we started on 12K i had an annoyingly tough table but was determined to give a decent account of myself. I didn't do a whole lot throughout the day but ended up on 28K having played some super solid poker and for once no huge bluffs. After this we were soon in the union and well and truly on it. It was cool to go back to the union and all in all i think we all had a good night, a personal highlight for me was organising a 5 on 5 boatrace in the middle of mojos, god i miss being a student! Day 2 wasn't a very long one for me as i soon lost 10K with J9 of hearts when it came 972 v's KK then lost AJ of spades v Q8 when it came Q65, 2 spades. I won a few small pots to get me back up to18Kish but then ran JJ into Jack 'the lemons' KK playing 400/800 oh well at least i played good. Overall it was a top quality weekend but i don't think we will be going back next year, even though Uni was the best 3 years of my life i think that it's time to move on and Newquay will be are last student trip, can't wait to go out with a bang!!
Away from Poker the 4 of us are moving round the corner so Mike can get his own room finally and not have to live in the lounge. The move is at the start of April and shouldn't effect me much at all really, we will still be in the same complex and still have full access to the awesome facilities that this place has. On that topic i've been such a lazy shit recently, couldn't have been to the gym more than twice last month, simply shocking! Also i've booked my trip to Australia and New Zealand for the middle of July until the middle of September. Jambon has sorted a house for Las Vegas but i need to book my flights at some point this month and then i can think about what events i want to play, one time let me run good!
Anyway think that post brings me up to date quite well. The International is having a festival next week and i'm planning on playing the £500 main event along with a couple of the side events which should be good fun. High Stakes season 5 is starting soon and that should be fucking awesome as usual, hope to look forward to another winning month.

Confident start to the year

Thankfully this year has got off to a solid start. I played just under 35K hands of 6max online and despite a poor start (fucking jet lag!!), i ended up winning just over $8K. I can't of played more than 5 tournaments online and truth be told i'm not missing them a great deal; 6 handed cash games are making me a better player and are providing a steadier income. I'm still a big fan of tournaments and in my own opinion still a much better tourney player but for the next few months i'm going to be playing mostly online cash.
I'm also pleased to report that my only two live poker outings of the month have both been a relative success. I've played a £100 and a £300 comp at the international and made the final table on both finishing 7th and 5th respectively. Although making both final tables is showing good form obviously i'm disappointed to have placed so poorly each time; still a £2000 profit isn't a terrible return for a couple of nights work. I'm probably going to head to Nottingham again next weekend to take on those idiots from Dusk till Dawn for the monthly £300, will hope to run better and play better than on my last two outings to the midlands.
Away from poker life is still pretty sweet. We're in the process of sorting out an extension on our current contract on the flat but at the moment things are still up in the air. I'm going to be living in Vegas for a month or so from the start of June until the end of the WSOP. I haven't spoken to Jambon yet about a staking deal but i'm hoping to play 3-5 side events along with the main and will be trying to pay about 1/3 of each entry fee, ship the bracelet one time etc etc. When i get back from vegas i'm planning on doing about 6 weeks of travelling round Australia with my friend Juliet and hopefully with some skiing in New Zealand thrown in as well. After that it's Oakhampton and then who knows, lots can happen before then but for now life is good. I've decided to try and make the blog a monthly thing excluding big occasions (deep run in the main event etc) so anyone out there following this it probably wont be updated until the start of march. One more final exciting thing to look forward to is the RSOP III which is in a couple of weeks, the poker should be fun but the piss up, golf and banter will no doubt be better.

Bring on 2009

I got back from South Africa a few days ago and as expected i had a really good time. There were 16 of us spread over 3 houses with everyone sharing a swimming pool and 3 golf courses and tennis courts within a 10 minuet drive. As i'm used to a incredibly relaxed lifestyle it certainly wasn't to hard for me to get back into holiday mode and i'm glad to report the whole family got on well and i've even started likeing some of my cousins as they get older and less annoying. Most days consisted of getting up about 9am (big shock) and then going to play golf or going to the beach and then just chill out in the afternoon reading, swimming and playing the awesome game that is clappy clap. This was followed by a really good meal, was so nice to eat well for 2 weeks in a row; washed down with a few nice beers and usually a game of trivial pursuit, shame the game was 25 years old as i was usually reduced to 2 or 3 correct answers a game.
Unfortunately despite getting in 6 rounds of golf in good conditions i was unable to put in a strong round. I played some decent golf in spells but i lost so many balls that it made a good score difficult. On the plus side i was able to beat my younger cousin at tennis twice, much to his annoyance. I'm also sure playing singles in 25 degree heat will be good for my fitness even if at the time it made me feel like a heart attack was inevitable.
I think the main plus side of the holiday is that i've come home mentally refreshed and i really want to play poker which is always a good sign. This excitement was probably the reason that i played a 5 hour 200 nl session as soon as i got back to the flat despite having slept for only 1 hour on the flight, woops. Obviously being stuck $1500 for the year sucked pretty hard but thankfully i managed to win it all back over the last few days and am now +$400 on the year, go me!! As far as plans for the year go i'm not exactly sure what i'm going to do. Newquay in June, Vegas in June/July and Oakhampton in September are all a lock but my sister is moving out to Australia in a few weeks and i would quite like to go and see her and maybe visit New Zealand or Thailand whilst i'm down there, have to wait and see. As for poker targets i'm still keen to work on my 6 max game over the next few months and try and play 30 hour weeks if i can. $100K would be a great amount to win in 2009 but if it doesn't happen then so be it, right now i'm looking forwards to my first full year as a poker pro and enjoying my life as much as possible.