The first live tournament of the year has come and gone, unfortunately it ended in failure. The good news about the trip was that i managed to get in via a £150 satellite the night before. The bad news is the satellite didn't finish until 4am and in the main event i ran like shit.
I haven't got that many interesting hands to write about to be honest. My first table was incredibly soft but i was very card dead so i couldn't take advantage. Most of the players were just playing to loose before the flop and butchering their hands post-flop. It still surprises me how soft these fields are but you still need to make hands to take advantage. I eventually busted in the 9th level shoving 13bb's from the small blind with K7 and running into A7 in the big, sigh. Overall I'm very happy with how i played and wouldn't change a single decision i made all weekend. I'll be getting back on the grind this week with a few interruptions; Spurs game on Tuesday, seeing my sister on Wednesday, trip to cheeses' on Friday and the £300 at the international Saturday. I'm also planning on swimming a couple of miles so 12 hours of online poker should be a fairly accurate prediction.
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Update
I'm pleased to report that the move up to $3/6 has been a relatively smooth one. I'm +$9K since my last post and looking good for a +$20K month overall. Despite this brilliant news there are still a few things I'm not happy about. The main one has been my general level of play. It's so easy to just presume you're playing well when your winning but this isn't always the case. I've played well the majority of the time but in two or three sessions I've been pretty poor. I really want to continue moving up but i know my consistency has to improve. If i can start producing my best game 90% of the time then i know i can compete at the higher levels. Obviously I'm going to make mistakes sometimes but i just need to keep learning from them.
In live poker news I'm heading to Bolton for the first leg of the GUKPT tomorrow. I'm getting the train up with Will in the afternoon, playing a satellite in the evening and then the main event starts on Friday at 2pm. This is my first major live event of the year so obviously hoping to start things off with a bang. The structure is quite good and in my experience the standard is usually fairly low. I'll probably blog when i get back about some fantastic hero call i made with king high against top set.
Away from poker I'm really starting to get excited about this premiership season. We lost to Liverpool tonight and played fucking terribly but i still think spurs have got a great chance of finishing 4th. The bookies have got Man City as favourites but i think it could be any one of four. Injuries will be a really important factor and from a spurs perspective we need Lennon back as soon as possible. He has been on fire this season and we really lack width without him playing.
I'm going to finish this post with the creation of another life rule:
NEVER BET ON AMERICAN FOOTBALL AGAIN YOU STUPID DEGEN FUCKWIT!
Anyway the Australian Open is on now so I'm going to bet on that instead.
In live poker news I'm heading to Bolton for the first leg of the GUKPT tomorrow. I'm getting the train up with Will in the afternoon, playing a satellite in the evening and then the main event starts on Friday at 2pm. This is my first major live event of the year so obviously hoping to start things off with a bang. The structure is quite good and in my experience the standard is usually fairly low. I'll probably blog when i get back about some fantastic hero call i made with king high against top set.
Away from poker I'm really starting to get excited about this premiership season. We lost to Liverpool tonight and played fucking terribly but i still think spurs have got a great chance of finishing 4th. The bookies have got Man City as favourites but i think it could be any one of four. Injuries will be a really important factor and from a spurs perspective we need Lennon back as soon as possible. He has been on fire this season and we really lack width without him playing.
I'm going to finish this post with the creation of another life rule:
NEVER BET ON AMERICAN FOOTBALL AGAIN YOU STUPID DEGEN FUCKWIT!
Anyway the Australian Open is on now so I'm going to bet on that instead.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Record Breakers
The year is still very much in it's infancy but i'm already a massive fan of 2010!! I've already beaten a couple of my poker records and the best thing about it was i managed them both in one day. First my 'biggest pot won' record now stands at $2800. I decided to see if i could find a juicy $5/10 game on cake and i couldn't resist when i watched a game for about 15 hands and saw some fundamental errors from a few players and one guy stacking off retardedly light. The best thing was someone soon quit and i was first on the waiting list. Anyway the hand itself was kind of a late Christmas present. I open to $30 UTG with AA, button reg 3 bets t0 $110, tilting mongo ships for $750 and i obviously stick my $1K and change in the middle. The button tank calls AK and the mongo has 55; no sick otdraw and we have a new record. I quit when the idiot did and then realised i had beaten my best ever cash game day, +$4K. Obviously i'm hoping this is a record i will be breaking time and time again as i work my way up the cash game ladder.
On that subject i've decided to move up to $3/6 NLH full time. I've played a bit at this level and a bit of $5/10 also but this time i'm taking a 10 buy-in shot with no intention of moving down unless i lose the whole $6K. In general moving up in the past has been followed by a period of breaking even until i become a steady winner. I'm seeing it as a challenge and this has to be seen as a positive step. Personally i find poker just as much about the competition as about the money and this is the main reason i'm still in love with the game. My own game has come on a lot at $2/4 and i'm hoping i can maintain this self improvement as i work towards achieving my annual goals.
I'll post when i either lose the $6K or update my progress at the end of the month. At the moment i'm +$10K in January so let's all hope the good times continue!
On that subject i've decided to move up to $3/6 NLH full time. I've played a bit at this level and a bit of $5/10 also but this time i'm taking a 10 buy-in shot with no intention of moving down unless i lose the whole $6K. In general moving up in the past has been followed by a period of breaking even until i become a steady winner. I'm seeing it as a challenge and this has to be seen as a positive step. Personally i find poker just as much about the competition as about the money and this is the main reason i'm still in love with the game. My own game has come on a lot at $2/4 and i'm hoping i can maintain this self improvement as i work towards achieving my annual goals.
I'll post when i either lose the $6K or update my progress at the end of the month. At the moment i'm +$10K in January so let's all hope the good times continue!
Friday, 1 January 2010
A mediocre year
We've reached that time again. The passing of one year and the transition into a new one. A good time for reflection, analysis, forward planning and hope.
All things considered i'm disappointed with 2009 from a professional perspective. Here is a quick review of my various results:
ONLINE CASH:
This was certainly where the vast majority of my 'work' hours were spent. I made $75K playing mostly 200 and 400nl, Hu and 6-max. I'm fairly content with this return but not over the moon. In all fairness i hardly played for 4 months of the year so the figure could certainly have been higher if i had managed more than a rather pathetic 250Kish hands which in poker terms isn't exactly high volume.
ONLINE TOURNIES:
I'm a little surprised that i actually has a losing year in online tournies but when you consider my volume this really was always going to be a possibility. I only managed around 40 tournies in an entire year which is obviously fairly laughable considering how profitable they are for me. Anyway i lost $5K.
LIVE CASH:
Only played 3 sessions all year and it was all quite low stakes. I made about $1k.
LIVE TOURNIES:
Oh dear!! Lost quite a lot of my own money in these bad boys and quite a lot of other peoples' as well. Lost approx $11K of my own money.
You don't have to be a genius to work out that gives me a +$60K 2009. The low point of my year was GUKPT Manchester where i played an awesome tourney, took the chip lead into the final and ended up finishing 8th. The highpoint has been the last two months online. I've been playing well, running good and have made just over $30K which has kind of saved my year from being a bag of shit. I'm also happy to report that i've improved as a player this year and this is something i'm obviously looking to continue with for as long as i'm playing for a living. I've also really worked hard on my Bankroll management and have never felt close to going broke at any point. I had to move back down to 200nl when i got back from travelling and even though i knew i could beat the higher limits i swallowed my pride and grinded hard.
Personally the last year has been fairly awesome. I'm just a really positive, happy person most of the time and i'm not one to take how lucky i am for granted. I have a great family, fantastic friends and a lifestyle that i just love, happy days!! I had an amazing time travelling with one of my best friends and also a great month in Vegas. Whenever i hit a low point with poker i just try and remind myself of these things and it serves as a great way for me to relax and stay positive. The year certainly ended with a bang with a little get together round our house. It was only about 30 people but i had a really good time and it was much better than going out for new years which tends to be an expensive anti-climax most of the time. Highlight of the night was our friend Bestie getting to drunk to stand by 8pm, getting naked and then being put to bed, i love that man!
Anyway that just about rounds up the year and the only thing to do now is look forward to 2010. Here are some goals that i'm shooting for:
All things considered i'm disappointed with 2009 from a professional perspective. Here is a quick review of my various results:
ONLINE CASH:
This was certainly where the vast majority of my 'work' hours were spent. I made $75K playing mostly 200 and 400nl, Hu and 6-max. I'm fairly content with this return but not over the moon. In all fairness i hardly played for 4 months of the year so the figure could certainly have been higher if i had managed more than a rather pathetic 250Kish hands which in poker terms isn't exactly high volume.
ONLINE TOURNIES:
I'm a little surprised that i actually has a losing year in online tournies but when you consider my volume this really was always going to be a possibility. I only managed around 40 tournies in an entire year which is obviously fairly laughable considering how profitable they are for me. Anyway i lost $5K.
LIVE CASH:
Only played 3 sessions all year and it was all quite low stakes. I made about $1k.
LIVE TOURNIES:
Oh dear!! Lost quite a lot of my own money in these bad boys and quite a lot of other peoples' as well. Lost approx $11K of my own money.
You don't have to be a genius to work out that gives me a +$60K 2009. The low point of my year was GUKPT Manchester where i played an awesome tourney, took the chip lead into the final and ended up finishing 8th. The highpoint has been the last two months online. I've been playing well, running good and have made just over $30K which has kind of saved my year from being a bag of shit. I'm also happy to report that i've improved as a player this year and this is something i'm obviously looking to continue with for as long as i'm playing for a living. I've also really worked hard on my Bankroll management and have never felt close to going broke at any point. I had to move back down to 200nl when i got back from travelling and even though i knew i could beat the higher limits i swallowed my pride and grinded hard.
Personally the last year has been fairly awesome. I'm just a really positive, happy person most of the time and i'm not one to take how lucky i am for granted. I have a great family, fantastic friends and a lifestyle that i just love, happy days!! I had an amazing time travelling with one of my best friends and also a great month in Vegas. Whenever i hit a low point with poker i just try and remind myself of these things and it serves as a great way for me to relax and stay positive. The year certainly ended with a bang with a little get together round our house. It was only about 30 people but i had a really good time and it was much better than going out for new years which tends to be an expensive anti-climax most of the time. Highlight of the night was our friend Bestie getting to drunk to stand by 8pm, getting naked and then being put to bed, i love that man!
Anyway that just about rounds up the year and the only thing to do now is look forward to 2010. Here are some goals that i'm shooting for:
- Make $100K from online cash games.
- Be beating $5/10 at a solid rate by the end of the year.
- Make the final table of a major live event.
- Win the WSOP main event.
I've also added a couple of rues that i will be trying to stick to:
- No drinking the night before a live tournament.
- No playing online before 5pm if i have been drinking heavily the night before.
- No listening to music when playing live, (amazing how much you can miss).
My general plan for the year is to play quite a lot of online cash over the next 4 months. I'll be playing all of the GUKPT main events in this time but won't be playing live apart from that. By the end of April it should be a little warmer so i'll be coming out of hibernation. I'll be looking to play more live tournies and maybe some £5/10 live. I'll then be smashing up Vegas for 5 weeks in the summer and preying i can do better than last year. Break even one time!!! After the series i might do some travelling for a month but i'm not sure yet. The contract is up on the house in september and i'm almost certain i will not be staying in London. I'd love to live overseas but i'm the laziest man alive so this could be a real hassle to set up.
January tends to be a fairly shit month in general but i've never really minded it. I'm going to be getting plenty of sleep, drinking lots of tea and hopefully win lots of $; let the games begin!
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
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.
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.
Friday, 20 November 2009
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:
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.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
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.
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.
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