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.