Day 2 Busto

I busted out the WSOP main event right at the end of day 2. To be honest I wasn't that annoyed. I never got above 60K and it simply wasn't to be.

Trying to change flights so I can get back to the UK in the next couple of days. Will blog when something of interesting happens.

Main Event

Made it through the day with 33.5K from 30K starting stack. Fairly happy with every decision i made except 1. Day 2 is on Monday. Run good please!

Vegas

I've now played 4 WSOP tournaments, they have not gone well. In better news I've played a few sessions of $2/5 and am up about $2.5K on the trip.

Played about 6 rounds of golf and have started playing better. I'm averaging about 22 over but would love to get down to 18 by September, probably will not happen.

Playing the main event on Saturday, day 1C. Will post when I'm done for the day.

Vegas

I arrived last tuesday. Have played 2 events so far and failed to cash in both. First one I lasted 20 minutes, lost 2 crucial hands. First with top set v turned flush. Then AK v AJ. Second event was yesterday. Lasted 8 hours but never really built up chips. Ended up 3 bet jamming KJ against the chip leader and he called 1010. I lose.

Already played a couple of bad rounds of golf. Nice to see Rory crush the US Open from start to finish, he's a joy to watch when he plays well. Planning on playing a lot over the next month despite the heat.

Playing the $1500 on Wednesday. Hope I win.

Is it April aleady?

They say that time flies when you're having fun, the last few months have flown by! On the whole life is great. I managed to come 2nd in a £400 live comp, I've been ticking along nicely online, winter is over, I've finally had a decent win from staking and everything friends/family/girlfriend related is just groovy. I'm +$38K so far and well on the way to that elusive $100K year.

I was planning on expanding on the previous paragraph but I've changed my mind. This is mostly due to two reasons. Firstly, it's short, concise and brings me up to date. Secondly it's a lovely day outside and I'm off to play golf. Will update with Vegas plans soon.

A long overdue update

I would like to apologise to those of you who follow this blog. I haven't posted for a long time and I'm sorry.

The good news is that life is great. The new flat in Bristol is fantastic and I'm really enjoying living hear. I already feel that my game is improving and that the decision to move here was a good one. By surrounding myself with other poker players I've given myself the best chance to be successful in a healthy environment.

My results thus far have been a little disappointing but that doesn't concern me. I'm enjoying playing and have increased my volume significantly since the move.

I'm really trying to stay positive and look forward to next year. Before i can do that however i need to be honest about the last 12 months. I haven't played anywhere near enough poker and still have a lot to work on. I'm pretty much in the same financial position as i was this time last year and that isn't good enough. Just because I'm lucky enough to pick and choose when i play this shouldn't result in an excuse to be lazy and go through long periods of hardly playing.

I set myself some targets at the start of the year and i haven't come close to hitting any of them. I'll admit that winning the WSOP main event was a little ambitious but the other three were certainly achievable. To have failed so miserably is extremely disappointing for me.

If 2012 is going to be different i need to take things more seriously and dedicate a lot more time to both studying and playing. I think I've taken the first step by moving away from London to be amongst fellow professional players. If i can stay focused on making good decisions then i see no reason why next year can't go a lot better than this one has.

Away from poker the last few months have been fairly quiet. I've been in London a lot seeing the girlfriend and been on a couple of holidays. One was a trip to Florence which was very enjoyable and the other was the golf holiday to Okehampton that i somehow managed to win! I really love the annual boys trip and i really hope that we keep it up for the years to come. I was really happy to win but i felt a bit guilty playing off such a high handicap having played so many rounds leading up to the competition. Looking forward to getting down there next year and defending my title!

I'm heading home for Christmas tomorrow and then will probably be back in Bristol for the new year. Hard to say when I'll next blog but i will try to keep it going, certainly think it's a positive outlet for me. Anyway happy Christmas to you all.

Life Update

The last six weeks have been fairly eventful. I've played some online poker, bashed up Broadstairs folk week, moved out of the London Pad and even won a live tournament! I'm now back in sunny Broadstairs whilst a few friends and I sort out a move to Bristol. I didn't really feel like blogging until I had something to write about and I now feel like this is a good time for reflection.

I'll start with an online cash update. On the whole it has gone quite well. I'm up about $10.5K since Vegas playing $1/2 and $2/$4. I've also put a solid amount of hands in which is encouraging. Usually at the this time of year I have very little interest in playing much online but I've been helped out by the shoddy weather.

I took five days off in the middle of August to come home and enjoy the awesomeness that is Broadstairs folk week. This is by far the best week of the year to be back home. The town is packed, the atmosphere is very friendly and the beers are flowing. It also gives me a chance to catch up with some of the boys from school that I don't get to see enough of. I'm going to give a big congrats to my friend Alec 'the boy' Howard for his stellar performance, getting pissed on every night of the week, you are my hero!

As usual the main event of the week was the annual half pint challenge. Now in its 5th year this particular pub crawl is going from strength to strength. 18 pubs, 9 pints, silly hats, flip cup and the Jurassic park theme tune all contributed in making this year the best yet!

The last two weeks in London have been very enjoyable but also a little sad. We've had some great nights out, most notably an absolute tear up in the Venue and my birthday meal at Goodmans. I still can't help but feel a little sad about the closing of another chapter in my life. Living with Tone, Liam, Mike, Brad and Hatz has been great fun and I wouldn't change the last three years for anything. Along with the rest of my friends they've all been very supportive of what I do and living with them has been an absolute pleasure.

Anyway the plan now is to move to Bristol for 9 months before the next WSOP. I'm looking forward to living with other poker players and I'm sure my game will benefit enormously. Just having other people to bounce ideas off and dissect hands with is great, hope I can continue to improve and put some serious volume in over the winter.

Now some very good news. Last week I won a £300 tourney at the international for £9.2K. I'm excited about this result for a number of reasons. Firstly money is awesome, secondly the field was quite tough, it's my home club and finally the structure is very unique for the size of the buy-in. You start with 20K in chips and the blind levels are 90 minutes. This offers phenomenal value for all players and it gives people a chance to play a $10K structure for just £300. It was nice to win a tourney for the first time in ages and the whole experience was a lot of fun. The club has a lot of regs and the banter was flying around. A lot of characters and a very good 3 days of work.

Anyway I'm about done on this one, very solid blog IMO! Not sure when I'll update next but the golf holiday in Okey is coming up so hopefully I can write about getting rid of that Fucking wooden spoon!

Day 3 busto

I just busted out the 2010 WSOP main event. I managed to finally get some chips to play with then lost a 120K flip with AK v QQ playing 600/1200/200. The hand itself is very standard and i think it represents my entire world series very well, double my stack then lose the next important hand i play. This seemed to happen in a lot of the events.

On the whole i'm extremely happy with the way i played this summer, especially in the main event. There isn't much i would change if i had to do it all over again. Unfortunately the reality is that i'm now enjoying a fairly brutal $16K downswing. The plan for the next few months is very simple: get back to England and get on the grind. Looking forward to the next world series already.

Hard Day 1

The good news is that i managed to make day 2. I only have 25 of my 30K starting stack but the blinds are only 200/400/50 so plenty of play left yet. My table was fairly soft with one guy in particular being terrible. The funny thing was the 'Italian stallion' ran his nuts off all day and finished with a 110K stack! I'm fairly happy with my decisions but a little frustrated about how the day went. I felt like i was in so many multi way pots against bad players with good hands but i just couldn't connect with a fucking thing. I really need to stop complaining about things outside my own control though and focus on the positives. I'm playing day 2A on Friday and all i can do is focus on making good decisions and hope to run much better than i did today. In the mean time I'm just going to relax and enjoy the holiday.

Main Event

I'm playing day 1A of the main event tomorrow. It's obviously the biggest and most prestigious event of the year and i'm fairly excited about playing in it for the third time. I'm a little annoyed that the recent downswing has prevented me from having a larger % of myself but all in all i'm just happy to be playing.

The latest side events did not go well. I busted both of them fairly early, one losing a flip and the other with AA v QQ all in pre. Away from the tables Vegas life has been a lot of fun. We've just been hanging out, drinking, watching the world cup and going out a lot for dinner/drinking/crazy shenanigans. A couple of the people in the house have been involved in some really fun situations with the ladies, most notably one William Brewin. Whilst i'm happy to write anything about myself on this page it probably isn't fair to write about his exploits, no matter how entertaining. Anyway i'm glad to report that on a personal note i've been behaving myself a bit better this year. My diet had been appalling and i've done very little exercise but life is good and i'm enjoying the whole Vegas experience, now to go and win the main event!

I cashed!!

I made the money in the latest $1500 event, finished 169th For nearly $4K. It was obviously a bit annoying not to make any real money but nice to have the first cash of the series. I ran really well in the first 8 levels to get up to a very healthy 65K in chips but the lost a 60K pot with AK v JJ. If i had won that pot i would have been i the top 10 going into Day 2. Unfortunately i suck at winning important flips and lost another one in the third level of day 2 to bust.

I'm playing the $1.5K on Monday and obviously hoping to keep my amazing streak alive. It also looks like i'll be playing the main event but only keeping a small % of myself.

0 and 4

I played the $1.5K shootout today and came 4th. I never really got anything going but i think i played fine. Ended up losing QJ v AK in another boring, standard hand. Next is another $1.5K on Wednesday. I hope England are safely through to the last 16 of the world cup by the time i take my seat.

More Fail

Busted the $1K in level 5 today. The hand was a total cooler. I had top set, he had an open ended straight flush draw and got there. It was a 13K pot playing 100/200 so obviously that would have been a nice one to win.

Can't stop losing

I thought it might be a good idea to play some online poker, it wasn't. Lost $3.5K playing 2/4 running like shit and tilting a bit. I can't stop losing at the moment and it's getting hard to take. For the first time in my life i'm hating the game and how unfair the variance can be. I'm 100% not playing online again whilst i'm out here.

0 and 2

Busted the $1.5K on day 1. I got off to a fast start chipping up to 11K from 4.5 start then this happened:

75/150 UTG+1 limps (playing to many hands and not playing them very well). I iso from CO with KQ to 500 playing a 11K stack to his 9Kish, everyone else folds and he calls. Flop AJ10 all spades, i have Queen of spades. He checks, i bet 675, he calls. Turn is off suit 9, he checks, i bet 1250, he calls. River ace, he leads for 3.3K, i call, he wins with A9 no spade. It was quite disgusting for me to lose that one and i never got anything going afterwards. I probably could have folded but it certainly wasn't an easy fold or a big mistake to call in that spot. I'm going to chill for a few days then play the $1K on Saturday.

$2.5K 6-max

I busted playing 300/600/75 when i re-shoved 1010 with 20 bb's and got called by AJ, fairly standard.

I think the overall standard in the tourney was quite high. Of the 15 opponents i came up against only 2 were bad players and 6 or 7 seemed to play very well. I think i played well. I certainly didn't make any big mistakes but i think i made one small one. I basically made a bluff that was fine but I'd just lost a fairly big pot and might have had a tilted image. This is obviously a good time to go for thinner value and not make a big bluff, oh well.

Next up is the $1.5K tomorrow.

Downswing

The last week has been one of the hardest that i've ever had to endure. I've lost $7K and gone through a very wide range of negative emotions. Most of the time i've just been really angry. I'm running so horribly it's sick. I can't remember a run of cards this bad and it's been hard to take.

The worst thing is that i've had to cash a lot out my roll to pay for Vegas. If Vegas goes badly i might have to move back down to $1/2 and i would hate that. I want to be moving the other way and moving back down would be a major blow to my pride. All this just makes the trip even more important. I really think it will define my year and i could very much do with catching a break.

I'm flying out next week and here is a list of the tournaments i plan on playing:


Mon 14th June - $2.5K 6 max
Wed 16th June - $1.5K
Sat 19th June - $1K
Mon 21st June - $1.5K shootout
wed 23rd June - $1.5K
Fri 25th June - $1.5K
Sat 26th June - $1K
Mon 28th June - $1.5K

I really would like to play the main event but I'm going to see how i do in the side events first. I'm not going to play online again in June, think i could do with a month off and just focus on winning a bracelet.

Groundhog day

My last three appearances on the Grosvenor Poker tour have been eerily similar in nature. Firstly i arrive, full of confidence, hope and expectation. Secondly I'm ecstatic to discover that the poker ability of the majority of the rest of my table is somewhat limited.

After these initial discoveries is where the fun starts. I spend the next 8 hours playing as well as i can whilst the poker gods have a good laugh at my expense until my inevitable exit at the end of day 1. The worst thing about it is the seeming inevitability of it all.

As you can probably tell from the first few paragraphs of this blog, my trip to Coventry was not a successful one. My starting, (and finishing) table was again very soft but yet again it was unable to do much about it. The first level was hilarious. I lost with KK to 33 on a J4386. Thankfully i was saved by a retarded opponent who didn't understand bet sizing. Next up i lose 99 to 43 when it comes 633, (he decided that his hand was good enough to defend v my UTG open). Next i have to fold AK when i smash the bus into AA. I the lose 77 twice multi way and then have A8 v an unknown over pair when i fold to his 2x pot bet on an 864. If my opponents were even somewhat competent i would have probably gone busto but all in all i was very happy to have only lost 30% of my starting stack.

I spent the next 7 levels totally card dead playing very few hands. I was able to grind back to my starting stack but unfortunately for me that was all i could manage. I think my exit hand was very standard and all in all i see nothing i could have done differently. Yet again I'm content with my performance but left amazed at how bad the last 2k hands of live poker have been.

Can't believe what a whinny little girl i am sometimes!!

Quick Update

I managed to just about ensure that April was a profitable month. Even though this is obviously good news i'm concerned about my mindset. I've been getting more and more frustrated with poker over the last few months. I'm not sure if this is because i'm bored of playing and in need of long break or because i'm running bad and struggling to emulate the success i had online at the end of last year.

The good news is that away from poker life is great. The flu is gone and the asthma pumps have helped a lot with my breathing. I swam half a mile earlier today and felt fine. I'm going to run a couple of miles later and see how i feel. I really hope i can maintain a healthy lifestyle for a while because i've been letting things slip. No exercise and lots of takeaways make Eddy a chubby boy!

I have a very strong feeling that this week will determine how much poker i play before Vegas. If things go well i could easily get my appetite back and play 30 hour weeks. If things go badly i might end up throwing my monitor out the window!

The end of my live drought

Good news!!! I finally cashed again in a live tournament.

I was home alone last Saturday so i decided to head to the international to watch the Spurs game. As well as being a good poker venue the club also has a wide screen to watch the games and serves good food, easy decision. After a great game and a very important victory for my team i decided to play the weekly £150. Now this tournament isn't great value. The level of play is quite high, the field quite small and the structure is obviously quite fast because it's a 1 day event. Despite all these negative factors i ended up 4 handed and we decided to do a chop. Two guys had about 180K in chips, i had 160K and another guy had 90K. After some smooth talking i managed to negotiate a good deal. The top 3 got £1750 and the other guy got £1450. If the blinds had been lower i wouldn't even think about a deal this generous but at 5K/10K my edge was fairly small so i was just happy to take the cash.

The online situation hasn't changed much since my last blog. I haven't been more than $3K either side of even this month and it's been a little frustrating. Every time i have a good day and feel like I'm ready to go on a rush and make some money i end up losing money in my next few sessions. The good news is that I've been a lot more level headed about it all since my last post and i feel like I'm playing well again. I really hope i can have a strong end to the April and avoid my first losing month since September 2009. I've still never had a losing month playing cash when I've played over 10K hands so this is the record i really want to hold on to.

Unfortunately I've had some bad news about my health. I've been struggling with my breathing over the last few months so i went to see the doctor. After a few tests she decided that i have asthma. My dad and sister have both had it for most of there lives so it wasn't that much of a shock really. I'm not to upset about it and it's nice to have the inhalers on hand to help when I'm struggling to breath. The worst think is that I've had a bit of flu recently which obviously makes things ten times worse. My nose has been completely blocked and this isn't really ideal when breathing is the major issue.

Anyway I've been feeling progressively better over the last few days and am now looking forward to going up to Manchester tomorrow for the GUKPT. I'm playing day 1B on Friday and obviously it would be nice to have a decent run after making the final table last year. I hope the next blog is a tale of victory!