I was lucky enough to have tickets to the Arsenal V Spurs game last night and as i'm sure any football fan would already know, it turned out to be an absolute classic! To come back from 4-2 down with 89 minutes played and get a point away from home was an awesome result for us and i'm proud to say that i was there. The only problem was that i was in the home end so obviously i had to keep my celebrations to a minimum and do most of my celebrating in my head. Overall i thought that it was a bit of a lucky result, Arsenal dominated the game for long periods and when theo got the ball i was shitting myself because his pace is electric and he played really well. Having said that Spurs stuck in the match and scored 2 great goals, David Bentley you hero! As far as the new manager goes i think that it's a decision that had to be made, Ramos finally learns English and gets fired, i guess that's football. Still it looks like Harry has had a immediate effect and i'm sure that come Christmas we'll be safe in mid table and can hope to push up into the top half in the new year, we've always been a cup side anyway, lol.
On a personal note not a great deal has happened since my last post, i've been a lazy lazy fucker and most have my time has been spent wanking, sleeping and watching prison break series 1; 10/10. Having set out with such hope at the start of month to try and be fairly productive i have failed miserably. I've had somewhere between 8 and 10 takeaways, been for 6 swims and been to the gym a pathetic 4 times. Despite theses short-Cummings i have managed to achieve 1 of my for monthly goals by racking up over 100 Mtt's. My results have been mixed and have continued on from the same trend as before, do well on party and suck balls on full tilt. I lost $5K this month on ftp but thanks to 3 decent scores on party i won about $14K on that site and am +$9K on the month, this has also been aided by the dollar getting stronger so it converts to around £5.5K and the best thing is its all tax free obviously. Tournaments have always been stronger for me than cash games but seeing how much some of my friends have made playing cash has urged me to take closer interest. I've downloaded poker tracker 3 and poker hud and have been working hard on my 6 max cash game. I've only been playing 4 tables of $0.5/1 but the software is helping a lot with game selection and i'm watching a lot of videos on leggo poker to try and improve. Although i still have tons to learn i've made a good start and am about $1.5K up this week, although i have the bankroll to play 3/6 i'm more than happy to start playing low and just try and improve enough to crush theses games, planing to move up to $1/2 at the start of December but i wont be doing that until i clear $5K at the lower level first.
My big news is that for the first time in over a month i will be leaving London! Scary! I'm going up to Nottingham tomorrow to play some live tournies, the first at 8pm is a £100 Freeze and the next is a two day £330 deepstack running on saturday and sunday. The structure of the two day comp is fairly decent so i should have a fairly big edge, i have no idea how many runners to expect but would be disappointed with anything under 60. Will do a full write up when i return to sunny London and i might set a few more realistic goals for the month we call November.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Saturday, 11 October 2008
A tale of two sites.
Just gonna start by saying that this is my 50th post, when i started writing this blog over a year ago now i thought it may well be another short term project that i ultimately got bored with and gave up on. Despite these immediate concerns however i'm very pleased that i've been able to maintain the blog and in return i think that it's allowed me to keep my poker in perspective and allowed me to express myself freely so i would say that overall it's been a success. Personally one of the major advantages for me is to be able to look back in time and see how i was doing at any given time and i certainly hope i can keep going with it even if this poker thing goes tits up.
My October goals have started with mixed success. First up the no take-away rule has failed horrendously; Liam and Mike have gone to Dublin for four days and we weren't able to do a big shop. Although i share the responsibility as i could have walked to Asda and bought a load of healthy stuff the simple convenience factor was to much for me and dominoes were on there way, i lasted 6 days btw. Since then i've had 2 chinese takeaways, might as well go down in a blaze of glory.
The swimming and gym sessions have also got off to a pretty bad start. As i sit here writing this it's coming up to 2am on the morning of the 12th, i've been swimming 4 times and to the gym twice so i'm way off my target of 20 and 10 respectively. It's going to be a huge ask to reach those targets but i think if is stop being such a lazy fucker i can do it; there are so many free hours in my days it would be a huge shame if i couldn't manage something that in reality should be fairly easy.
The one goal for the month that is of course going to plan is the increased amount of poker tournaments that i've been trying to play. I've racked up over 40 already so getting to 100 should be no problem whatsoever. Quantity however is of course a distant second in importance in this instance to results which as the title of this blog suggests have been mixed. Unfortunatley i'm -$3K on fulltilt and this is a big disappointment. I've made some conscious changes to my play in order to adapt to the site but i think i need to make some more. I've ran quite bad at the wrong times but i still seem to struggle in the middle stages of a lot of tourneys when maybe i hit the panic button a little to early and try and force a move or call off in a spot where deep down i know i should be folding. The worst thing is that i know in a lot of full tilt tourneys i've not played my best and as i've said before being a pro is not about playing your A game some of the time it's about bringing it most of the time and if i can do this i'm sure a decent score on that sight will arrive before i go on holiday to South Africa in a couple of months. Fortunately things have been going much better on my beloved party poker where i'm +$9.5K over the last 12 days. I've only made 2 final tables but on both occasions my concentration has been 100% and i've won them both in style. I feel really comfortable on this site as soon as i get a stack together i'm very hard to beat, god bless those party donks. I havn't posted a hand for a while so i'' stick this classic up just to annoy cashy when he reads this:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3310610
Quite standard for me really, to lazy to explain.
So as far as poker goes i'm up $6.5K on the month and will be more than happy if i can get to +$10,000 by the end of October. Hope to put a big effort in next week in the pool and gym and hope to get back on track in relation to my goals. Fuck the no take-away rule, why change the habit of a lifetime. Just as a side note i smashed through Harry Potter 7 and i feel like a prick for saying it but as a series of books they were fantastic and get better and better as you go through. The author has an amazing writing style and just as was the case with the davinci code i couldn't book the last three books down. To anyone who has only watched the films and is a cynic of Harry Potter i would urge them to read the books, they are phenomenal. The next two books i'm going for are 'the curius incident of the dog in the night time', by Mark Haddon and Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Both have outstanding reviews and am looking forward to both. On the DVD front i'm 6 episodes in to the first series of 24 and i wouldn't say i'm enjoying it but i'm thrilled by it if that makes any sense at all, looking forward to seeing how things turn out cause at the moment the wife is in a car with a killer, the daughter is kidnapped by an evil genius and as for Mr Jack Bauer he seems to be fighting a 1 man battle against the rest of the world.
My October goals have started with mixed success. First up the no take-away rule has failed horrendously; Liam and Mike have gone to Dublin for four days and we weren't able to do a big shop. Although i share the responsibility as i could have walked to Asda and bought a load of healthy stuff the simple convenience factor was to much for me and dominoes were on there way, i lasted 6 days btw. Since then i've had 2 chinese takeaways, might as well go down in a blaze of glory.
The swimming and gym sessions have also got off to a pretty bad start. As i sit here writing this it's coming up to 2am on the morning of the 12th, i've been swimming 4 times and to the gym twice so i'm way off my target of 20 and 10 respectively. It's going to be a huge ask to reach those targets but i think if is stop being such a lazy fucker i can do it; there are so many free hours in my days it would be a huge shame if i couldn't manage something that in reality should be fairly easy.
The one goal for the month that is of course going to plan is the increased amount of poker tournaments that i've been trying to play. I've racked up over 40 already so getting to 100 should be no problem whatsoever. Quantity however is of course a distant second in importance in this instance to results which as the title of this blog suggests have been mixed. Unfortunatley i'm -$3K on fulltilt and this is a big disappointment. I've made some conscious changes to my play in order to adapt to the site but i think i need to make some more. I've ran quite bad at the wrong times but i still seem to struggle in the middle stages of a lot of tourneys when maybe i hit the panic button a little to early and try and force a move or call off in a spot where deep down i know i should be folding. The worst thing is that i know in a lot of full tilt tourneys i've not played my best and as i've said before being a pro is not about playing your A game some of the time it's about bringing it most of the time and if i can do this i'm sure a decent score on that sight will arrive before i go on holiday to South Africa in a couple of months. Fortunately things have been going much better on my beloved party poker where i'm +$9.5K over the last 12 days. I've only made 2 final tables but on both occasions my concentration has been 100% and i've won them both in style. I feel really comfortable on this site as soon as i get a stack together i'm very hard to beat, god bless those party donks. I havn't posted a hand for a while so i'' stick this classic up just to annoy cashy when he reads this:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3310610
Quite standard for me really, to lazy to explain.
So as far as poker goes i'm up $6.5K on the month and will be more than happy if i can get to +$10,000 by the end of October. Hope to put a big effort in next week in the pool and gym and hope to get back on track in relation to my goals. Fuck the no take-away rule, why change the habit of a lifetime. Just as a side note i smashed through Harry Potter 7 and i feel like a prick for saying it but as a series of books they were fantastic and get better and better as you go through. The author has an amazing writing style and just as was the case with the davinci code i couldn't book the last three books down. To anyone who has only watched the films and is a cynic of Harry Potter i would urge them to read the books, they are phenomenal. The next two books i'm going for are 'the curius incident of the dog in the night time', by Mark Haddon and Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Both have outstanding reviews and am looking forward to both. On the DVD front i'm 6 episodes in to the first series of 24 and i wouldn't say i'm enjoying it but i'm thrilled by it if that makes any sense at all, looking forward to seeing how things turn out cause at the moment the wife is in a car with a killer, the daughter is kidnapped by an evil genius and as for Mr Jack Bauer he seems to be fighting a 1 man battle against the rest of the world.
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
Monthly Goals
Got back from Devon yesterday afternoon and as expected had a good time. We left at 6am on Friday and from that moment on was pretty tired, playing a lot of golf in the day and then drinking till midnight every night. We played a 54 hole individual competition and i got off to a nightmare start, finishing dead last by 7 shots after day 1. I hadn't played for a couple of months and only 3 times this year so i wasn't shocked by this outcome, i was also giving 3 of the guys between 4 and 8 shots a round so it wasn't looking good. I played a lot better on day 2 and was still in last place but had shut the gap to 3 shots on mike and Liam so the 3 of us went out in the wooden spoon match on the final day. After a ding dong battle with Liam i managed to sneak past him on the 17th to finish 8 out of 9. I played better each day and by day 3 was at my very best tee to green, i putted terribly however which cost me a lot of shots and overall i was just glad not to finish last. Congrats to Ben 'big cheese' Warwick on his victory who played very solid all week and deserved it 100%. I only lost about £50 on the golf course thanks to my victory in the closest to the pin comp and won £30 in the paper/scissor- rock comp after a dramatic 4-3 victory against cashy in the best of 7 final. That's 2 in a row for me and am very pleased to rank myself as the number 1 player in the group, if not the world. We also played a 7-man £5 poker crapshoot which i obviously won winning every single all in pre showdown along the way, my favourite being the 8-3 V A3 classic coin flip scenario, lol. As far as the rest of the holiday goes, rooms were fine: 4/5. Food was good enough and a lot of it: 4/5. The main problems were that it felt a bit like an old peoples home and the rest of the people were mostly over 40 but this is to expected from a golf holiday i guess. Looking forward to next year.
Looking into the immediate future i've decided to set myself some goals for the upcoming month. I've been a bit of a lazy fucker of late and i think my results have reflected this. September was a decent month and it was nice to get back to winning ways after a shit August but i threw away a lot of good chances for $5K + paydays and am looking forward to trying to change this over the next few weeks, i also feel like i once again didn't put the hours in and am looking forward to pushing myself as hard as i can. Finally i ate real bad throughout the last few months and havn't put the hours in the gym and in the swimming pool since my return from Las Vegas. So with this in mind my goals for the month are:
1) Play a minimum of 100 MTT's before the end of October Ranging from anywhere between $50 to $550 freezeouts and $30 - $100 rebuys.
2) I'm not allowed to eat any fast food including pizza, indian, chinese, kebabs etc. Also make a conscious effort to eat less crisps, chocolate and biscuits.
3) Swim at least 20 times. Each session being 100 lengths of the 15m pool.
4) Go to the gym at least 10 times. 2000M on the rowing machine each time and weights as well.
So those are my 4 simple goals for the month and i think with a bit of hard work i should be able to manage. I was thinking about giving up alcohol but that might cause my body to die of shock so i'll just stick to fast food. I don't think i've gone a month without eating junk sine i was about 12 so this could be a struggle. As for the poker i'm not sure what effect a dramatic increase in play will have on my results. If i can keep my ROI above 100% on party and Full tilt i would be a very happy boy as that would result in a $10K month. I think the average day will be something like this; get up at 1pm, eat, go to the gym/pool between 2pm and 4pm. Play tiger woods-watch tv/read and eat dinner until 8pm and then play 4 or 5 tournies starting between 8 and 1am. The sleeping pattern might get a little fucked but as long as the last tourney i play doesn't start later than 1am and i'm always up before 2pm i should get plenty of sleep and be rested enough to achieve my goals. Will probably to a progress report after each week explaining how each of my objectives are going, who says poker player have no structure?
Looking into the immediate future i've decided to set myself some goals for the upcoming month. I've been a bit of a lazy fucker of late and i think my results have reflected this. September was a decent month and it was nice to get back to winning ways after a shit August but i threw away a lot of good chances for $5K + paydays and am looking forward to trying to change this over the next few weeks, i also feel like i once again didn't put the hours in and am looking forward to pushing myself as hard as i can. Finally i ate real bad throughout the last few months and havn't put the hours in the gym and in the swimming pool since my return from Las Vegas. So with this in mind my goals for the month are:
1) Play a minimum of 100 MTT's before the end of October Ranging from anywhere between $50 to $550 freezeouts and $30 - $100 rebuys.
2) I'm not allowed to eat any fast food including pizza, indian, chinese, kebabs etc. Also make a conscious effort to eat less crisps, chocolate and biscuits.
3) Swim at least 20 times. Each session being 100 lengths of the 15m pool.
4) Go to the gym at least 10 times. 2000M on the rowing machine each time and weights as well.
So those are my 4 simple goals for the month and i think with a bit of hard work i should be able to manage. I was thinking about giving up alcohol but that might cause my body to die of shock so i'll just stick to fast food. I don't think i've gone a month without eating junk sine i was about 12 so this could be a struggle. As for the poker i'm not sure what effect a dramatic increase in play will have on my results. If i can keep my ROI above 100% on party and Full tilt i would be a very happy boy as that would result in a $10K month. I think the average day will be something like this; get up at 1pm, eat, go to the gym/pool between 2pm and 4pm. Play tiger woods-watch tv/read and eat dinner until 8pm and then play 4 or 5 tournies starting between 8 and 1am. The sleeping pattern might get a little fucked but as long as the last tourney i play doesn't start later than 1am and i'm always up before 2pm i should get plenty of sleep and be rested enough to achieve my goals. Will probably to a progress report after each week explaining how each of my objectives are going, who says poker player have no structure?
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Poker, Golf and drinking.
As you may be able to guess from the title, this blog is going to be about 3 of my favourite things; poker, golf and drinking. In truth this is pretty much all my blogs are ever about so it shouldn't be to hard to write and certainly not to hard to follow.
Before i move on to my WSOPE event 1 report i'll just mention a few things from the night before. Jonn Taba organised a birthday party for reigning WSOPE champ Annette Oberstadt and very kindly invited us along. We had a few drinks before hand but seeing as the boys had work the next day and Will and i were playing i didn't plan on staying to long or drinking that much. This plan changed very quickly when we found out the drinks were free and most of us decided to take full advantage. Long story short after about 10 double vodka and Oranges and a bad night sleep i arrived at the empire feeling a little worse for wear and looking a little fragile. I was however dressed amazingly in my pink headband sunglasses and a rather fresh looking shirt. Just going back to the party for a sec Greg thought it would be funny to ask Phil Hellmuth if he was Phil Ivey, it was funny. It was even Funnier when he asked him again 10 minutes later, that boy cracks me up.
Anyway i took my seat in the upstairs section of the empire which was away from the main pit and got down to business. Folded for the first 10 minutes and was just having a look at the opposition and soon realised that i'd drawn a pretty weak table and everyone was playing quite tight; if its 1 thing to get over a hangover it's a weak table. So i raise the 74 soooted to 150 get 3 bet and fold, he shows AA. Raise the 10 8 off a few hands later, get 3-bet, fold. Wait a few hand raise on the Co with AJ get 3- bet, fold and get shown AK. So i'm sure you can notice a theme going on here but i wasn't to worried about this and just hoped that this pattern would fade out sooner rather than later. Managed to chip up to 6800 from a 6k start and felt like things were going rather well when this hand took place: UTG limps and i look down at 77 in mp so opt for the limp in behind and flop a set tactic. Folded round to the bb who checks before we see a rather sexy Q 7 6 rainbow flop. BB checks as does the limp and i bet 125 into a pot of 175. BB raises to 350 and limper folds. At this point i was sure he had atleast a queen and maybe 2 pair. He also was over 30 and seemed quite nervous so i'm not gibing him the straight draw as i think would check call in that spot. So now i'm thinking how can i try and get it all in by the river and raise to 900, he insta calls. Turn is another Queen which seems a great card for me considering his range and he bets 600. For some reason i just insta flat called, not sure why. Anyway river is a 9 and he bets 1500. At this point i have 2 options, call or go all in for another 3800. Online i would have just moved in in on the turn but the guy looked quite relaxed so i knew he though he had the best hand but obviously it's been 30 mins and i have no idea if this guy can play, he may think KQ is the nuts in this spot. Going back through the hand i made a desision that Q6 was a massive part of his range and decided that just a call was the correct play, he flipped Q6 and i managed to survive an absolute cold deck and still have over half my starting stack, very happy with that.
After about 5 orange juices the hangover was totally gone and i was feeling in the zone. Got my stack back up to 8000 during the 50/100 level witha few good bluffs and a some decent hands before i got the dreaded table move. The 100/200 level was a bit of a blur slipped down to about 7K and then got moved again to Will's table which was funny. This table was looking very serious and despite my good natured banter the rest of the guys were pretty much in the zone so i just tried to quite down a little bit and get on with it. The standard was certainly better on this table and as soon as we started playing 100/200/25 the aggression was a lot more noticeable. Soon got my stack to 11K when i won a flip with 88 v shortstacked J10 and then this went down: I look down at AK sooted on the Co and raise to 575, button folds and then the Sb (young American guy who just yelled online player) made it 1900. He had been looking for a spot to 3 bet me and i was sure his range was massive. I thought about smoothing but i thought he would bet most flops and it would be hard for me to call unless i hit so i thought 4-betting all in was the better play. I know he is unlikely to call with much but thought he would call with 1010+ and maybe even AQ, AJ considering the table dynamic, He did call but the bad news for me was it was with AA.
It turns out that young guy was Yuvgeni Timeshenko and he is a pretty big deal, he ended up finishing 3rd and has had some other big results as well:
http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/91983/yevgeniy-timoshenko.htm
We talked the hand over and he agreed it was just standard, seemed like a nice guy though and is clearly a great player. Overall i'm happy with the way i played but there was nothing i could do. Was a miracle i survived the first cold deck but surviving 2 in a structure that isn't the best is next to impossible.
Not sure when i'm going to play live again. Maybe the GUKPT Thanet if my 6 month ban is over, was thinking about going home anyway so would be a double whammy. In the Online world it's been a solid month, up about $4K ish and took down my first ever PLO comp last night on full tilt. It was only a $30 rebuy with 120 runners but the $3.3K was nice and i was surprised how bad the standard was. Twice i got donked on by other big stacks and had a big chiplead from 3 tables out. I didn't push quite as hard as i would have in a holdem comp as i wanted to avoid to many marginal spots but i played an aggressive game and in all honesty think i played quite well.
Finally its time for Oakhampton on friday and can't wait to get down there. We're leaving at 6am which sucks and i'm pretty sure i'll play crap but there are other sports down there as well and i just shot a 59 on tiger woods 2009, that had to be a good sign.
Before i move on to my WSOPE event 1 report i'll just mention a few things from the night before. Jonn Taba organised a birthday party for reigning WSOPE champ Annette Oberstadt and very kindly invited us along. We had a few drinks before hand but seeing as the boys had work the next day and Will and i were playing i didn't plan on staying to long or drinking that much. This plan changed very quickly when we found out the drinks were free and most of us decided to take full advantage. Long story short after about 10 double vodka and Oranges and a bad night sleep i arrived at the empire feeling a little worse for wear and looking a little fragile. I was however dressed amazingly in my pink headband sunglasses and a rather fresh looking shirt. Just going back to the party for a sec Greg thought it would be funny to ask Phil Hellmuth if he was Phil Ivey, it was funny. It was even Funnier when he asked him again 10 minutes later, that boy cracks me up.
Anyway i took my seat in the upstairs section of the empire which was away from the main pit and got down to business. Folded for the first 10 minutes and was just having a look at the opposition and soon realised that i'd drawn a pretty weak table and everyone was playing quite tight; if its 1 thing to get over a hangover it's a weak table. So i raise the 74 soooted to 150 get 3 bet and fold, he shows AA. Raise the 10 8 off a few hands later, get 3-bet, fold. Wait a few hand raise on the Co with AJ get 3- bet, fold and get shown AK. So i'm sure you can notice a theme going on here but i wasn't to worried about this and just hoped that this pattern would fade out sooner rather than later. Managed to chip up to 6800 from a 6k start and felt like things were going rather well when this hand took place: UTG limps and i look down at 77 in mp so opt for the limp in behind and flop a set tactic. Folded round to the bb who checks before we see a rather sexy Q 7 6 rainbow flop. BB checks as does the limp and i bet 125 into a pot of 175. BB raises to 350 and limper folds. At this point i was sure he had atleast a queen and maybe 2 pair. He also was over 30 and seemed quite nervous so i'm not gibing him the straight draw as i think would check call in that spot. So now i'm thinking how can i try and get it all in by the river and raise to 900, he insta calls. Turn is another Queen which seems a great card for me considering his range and he bets 600. For some reason i just insta flat called, not sure why. Anyway river is a 9 and he bets 1500. At this point i have 2 options, call or go all in for another 3800. Online i would have just moved in in on the turn but the guy looked quite relaxed so i knew he though he had the best hand but obviously it's been 30 mins and i have no idea if this guy can play, he may think KQ is the nuts in this spot. Going back through the hand i made a desision that Q6 was a massive part of his range and decided that just a call was the correct play, he flipped Q6 and i managed to survive an absolute cold deck and still have over half my starting stack, very happy with that.
After about 5 orange juices the hangover was totally gone and i was feeling in the zone. Got my stack back up to 8000 during the 50/100 level witha few good bluffs and a some decent hands before i got the dreaded table move. The 100/200 level was a bit of a blur slipped down to about 7K and then got moved again to Will's table which was funny. This table was looking very serious and despite my good natured banter the rest of the guys were pretty much in the zone so i just tried to quite down a little bit and get on with it. The standard was certainly better on this table and as soon as we started playing 100/200/25 the aggression was a lot more noticeable. Soon got my stack to 11K when i won a flip with 88 v shortstacked J10 and then this went down: I look down at AK sooted on the Co and raise to 575, button folds and then the Sb (young American guy who just yelled online player) made it 1900. He had been looking for a spot to 3 bet me and i was sure his range was massive. I thought about smoothing but i thought he would bet most flops and it would be hard for me to call unless i hit so i thought 4-betting all in was the better play. I know he is unlikely to call with much but thought he would call with 1010+ and maybe even AQ, AJ considering the table dynamic, He did call but the bad news for me was it was with AA.
It turns out that young guy was Yuvgeni Timeshenko and he is a pretty big deal, he ended up finishing 3rd and has had some other big results as well:
http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/91983/yevgeniy-timoshenko.htm
We talked the hand over and he agreed it was just standard, seemed like a nice guy though and is clearly a great player. Overall i'm happy with the way i played but there was nothing i could do. Was a miracle i survived the first cold deck but surviving 2 in a structure that isn't the best is next to impossible.
Not sure when i'm going to play live again. Maybe the GUKPT Thanet if my 6 month ban is over, was thinking about going home anyway so would be a double whammy. In the Online world it's been a solid month, up about $4K ish and took down my first ever PLO comp last night on full tilt. It was only a $30 rebuy with 120 runners but the $3.3K was nice and i was surprised how bad the standard was. Twice i got donked on by other big stacks and had a big chiplead from 3 tables out. I didn't push quite as hard as i would have in a holdem comp as i wanted to avoid to many marginal spots but i played an aggressive game and in all honesty think i played quite well.
Finally its time for Oakhampton on friday and can't wait to get down there. We're leaving at 6am which sucks and i'm pretty sure i'll play crap but there are other sports down there as well and i just shot a 59 on tiger woods 2009, that had to be a good sign.
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Full tilt V's Party
I've now been playing on full tilt poker for a few months and am pleased to say that i had my first mini score on the site a few days ago. I took $3.8K for 6th place in a $162 comp but was pretty fucked off with it as i had the chiplead with 8 left; then i just kept losing showdowns and eventually ran QQ into AA and went busto. Was pretty happy with my decision making throughout the tourney and am pleased to have a positive ROI on the site after a slow start and a terrible FTOPS.
The problem with starting to play on a new site is that you can't simply presume that you can play exactly the same way and make the same positive returns, a lesson i have now learnt. I'm not saying that you shouldn't keep the same general plan but i've just simply had to make a few changes to combat the contrasting style of the opposition. I'm not going to go into great detail on this one but one thing i will say that in general the standard on full tilt is a lot higher especially as you get deep. Despite this however the structure of the double stack tournies is also far superior to the regular comps on party poker. For the time being i'm happy to play on both sites and am planning on putting as many hours as i physically can in when we get back from Oakhampton.
On that note i simply can't wait for this golf holiday!!I'm not expecting to much from myself on the course but the banter will be awesome no doubt and it'll be good for some of the boys to get a break from the real world, man am i glad i'm not doing something to serious with my life.
Planning on buying into WSOPE tomorrow and then going to watch a little bit of champions league action after. Still not sure if i'm going to sell any % in myself, i think i should but at the same time i quite want to take the risk and just say oh fuck it lets gamble i don't want to give away any of my £150,000 first place, one time etc etc.
Not much going on at the moment in truth and think i'm writing this blog out of boredom more than anything else. Played 5-side football today and nearly died. Our team got quite easily beaten and i played pretty bad on pitch but was quite good in goal. Have finished Harry potter 5, another very good book and am now looking forward to smashing up the last two in the next few months.
Finally i think i have a new hero, this guy is sooooooooooooo sick funny:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xQWYfbqFiGE
The problem with starting to play on a new site is that you can't simply presume that you can play exactly the same way and make the same positive returns, a lesson i have now learnt. I'm not saying that you shouldn't keep the same general plan but i've just simply had to make a few changes to combat the contrasting style of the opposition. I'm not going to go into great detail on this one but one thing i will say that in general the standard on full tilt is a lot higher especially as you get deep. Despite this however the structure of the double stack tournies is also far superior to the regular comps on party poker. For the time being i'm happy to play on both sites and am planning on putting as many hours as i physically can in when we get back from Oakhampton.
On that note i simply can't wait for this golf holiday!!I'm not expecting to much from myself on the course but the banter will be awesome no doubt and it'll be good for some of the boys to get a break from the real world, man am i glad i'm not doing something to serious with my life.
Planning on buying into WSOPE tomorrow and then going to watch a little bit of champions league action after. Still not sure if i'm going to sell any % in myself, i think i should but at the same time i quite want to take the risk and just say oh fuck it lets gamble i don't want to give away any of my £150,000 first place, one time etc etc.
Not much going on at the moment in truth and think i'm writing this blog out of boredom more than anything else. Played 5-side football today and nearly died. Our team got quite easily beaten and i played pretty bad on pitch but was quite good in goal. Have finished Harry potter 5, another very good book and am now looking forward to smashing up the last two in the next few months.
Finally i think i have a new hero, this guy is sooooooooooooo sick funny:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xQWYfbqFiGE
Monday, 8 September 2008
Fixing some leaks.
I think one of my main weaknesses as a poker player and as a person in general is my over-confidence/arrogance. I'm certainly not a modest person and i also think i am realistic about my skills across the board; i am however a very gifted poker player or to be more exact a great NLH tournament player. The problem with this attitude is that sometimes it makes it hard to look at my game and analyse the weak elements of it, especially when running good and making plenty of cash.
Carrying on from my last blog things haven't been going great but i do feel that i've been able to make a few adjustments to my play that have already swung me in the right direction (cashed in 4 from the last 6 comps). The main problem was that i was simply busting to early in a lot of tournies and really not giving myself a shot. The main skill element comes deep in the tournies when applying a lot of pressure and essentially knowing when to gamble and obviously start 3 betting all in with utter filth etc. To be able to do this however you have to get there first and i certainly recognised that i was making a few to many plays early and maybe hitting the gamble button to soon. Obviously i was running quite bad which sometimes makes me want to gamble but i really should be trying to avoid getting it all in pre in the first few levels in a coin flip situation when there are so many easy double ups out there. The truth is that anyone who plays a lot of MTT's will agree that there is simply no point playing fast early on because there are so many morons out there just waiting to give it all away.
I also found that to a large extent my concentration levels were at an all time low, either i was bored, simply not paying any attention or watching tv and although playing an auto pilot stratergy is easy its certainly not the most profitable, especially when you get deep.
So anyway i'm trying to improve and am sure that a $5K payday will pop up soon. Until then i'm happy in my own head trying to make as many good decisions as i can and trying to ignore the results (some of the beats have just been disgusting).
In other non poker related shit; first i've been a lazy fucker recently very little gym or pool action and i did 100 lengths today which is standard and nearly drowned!! Sports betting is going as well as ever, lol, had $50 on Murray to win the US open at 15/1 gg me. I also put a massive $600 bet on the womens semi-finals, woooooooooops!! never betting on that retard dementieva again! Also my cheeky bet on spurs to make the top 4 is looking fantastic, the usual strong start to the season as we'll no doubt float around in the relegation zone for 3 months and then start playing sometime in 2009, the pain of being a spurs fan is just sick!
I'm half way through Harry Potter 5 which so far is quite slow but i'm still enjoying it and am proud to say that for once in my life i'm going to achieve something that i set out to do. On the music front i'm getting more and more into kings of leon, i've always liked them but they just have so many great songs and the songs i've heard from the new album are quality. On the golf front i'm shitting myself. Looks like i might not get a game in before oakhampton and despite showing signs of promise last time i played i'm nowhere near ready to compete with some of the guys and would be more than happy to go down there play ok and not finish last.
Finally i saw the full line up for the wsop final table and i hadn't realised that i played a lot of poker with 3 of the guys on the final. The American chess prodigy with the jewish name is actually the guy i ran the huge bluff on on a J J 7 flop for all the tea in china, glad to see he put my chips to good use. I'm not sure he has the game to win it but he will certainly be a threat and he was a fan of the pinkheadband so i'm behind him 100%. Its now 5am so better go to sleep £180 sat to the WSOPE event 1 tomo at gutshot which would be nice to win, gotta start running good again soon.
Carrying on from my last blog things haven't been going great but i do feel that i've been able to make a few adjustments to my play that have already swung me in the right direction (cashed in 4 from the last 6 comps). The main problem was that i was simply busting to early in a lot of tournies and really not giving myself a shot. The main skill element comes deep in the tournies when applying a lot of pressure and essentially knowing when to gamble and obviously start 3 betting all in with utter filth etc. To be able to do this however you have to get there first and i certainly recognised that i was making a few to many plays early and maybe hitting the gamble button to soon. Obviously i was running quite bad which sometimes makes me want to gamble but i really should be trying to avoid getting it all in pre in the first few levels in a coin flip situation when there are so many easy double ups out there. The truth is that anyone who plays a lot of MTT's will agree that there is simply no point playing fast early on because there are so many morons out there just waiting to give it all away.
I also found that to a large extent my concentration levels were at an all time low, either i was bored, simply not paying any attention or watching tv and although playing an auto pilot stratergy is easy its certainly not the most profitable, especially when you get deep.
So anyway i'm trying to improve and am sure that a $5K payday will pop up soon. Until then i'm happy in my own head trying to make as many good decisions as i can and trying to ignore the results (some of the beats have just been disgusting).
In other non poker related shit; first i've been a lazy fucker recently very little gym or pool action and i did 100 lengths today which is standard and nearly drowned!! Sports betting is going as well as ever, lol, had $50 on Murray to win the US open at 15/1 gg me. I also put a massive $600 bet on the womens semi-finals, woooooooooops!! never betting on that retard dementieva again! Also my cheeky bet on spurs to make the top 4 is looking fantastic, the usual strong start to the season as we'll no doubt float around in the relegation zone for 3 months and then start playing sometime in 2009, the pain of being a spurs fan is just sick!
I'm half way through Harry Potter 5 which so far is quite slow but i'm still enjoying it and am proud to say that for once in my life i'm going to achieve something that i set out to do. On the music front i'm getting more and more into kings of leon, i've always liked them but they just have so many great songs and the songs i've heard from the new album are quality. On the golf front i'm shitting myself. Looks like i might not get a game in before oakhampton and despite showing signs of promise last time i played i'm nowhere near ready to compete with some of the guys and would be more than happy to go down there play ok and not finish last.
Finally i saw the full line up for the wsop final table and i hadn't realised that i played a lot of poker with 3 of the guys on the final. The American chess prodigy with the jewish name is actually the guy i ran the huge bluff on on a J J 7 flop for all the tea in china, glad to see he put my chips to good use. I'm not sure he has the game to win it but he will certainly be a threat and he was a fan of the pinkheadband so i'm behind him 100%. Its now 5am so better go to sleep £180 sat to the WSOPE event 1 tomo at gutshot which would be nice to win, gotta start running good again soon.
Saturday, 30 August 2008
Long update
So i haven't done a blog for a while and i guess this is just down to a pretty poor run at the tables. Things have gone quite badly in August and its a shame to report that it will be my first losing month of 2008, boooooo!
Picking up where i left off, i played 4 of the FTOPS events and failed to cash in any of them. I never really got going in any of the comps and wasn't close to the business end of things once. A Personal highlight however was busting Mike Mattasuw out the $240 6max comp when i 4 bet him all in pre with J8 V his AA, lol.
After that was all over i headed back to thanet for folk week, which as usual was awesome. Went out every night and the town was very busy but was nice to see all the lads from home with the banter flowing as usual. The annual half pint challenge was certainly the highlight of the trip (drinking a half pint in every pub in broadstairs) and it was achieved in record pace this year, with only 2 of the 13 starters being sick, not a bad ratio at the speed we were going.
I was back in sunny London just in time for my birthday which was a quiet affair, just the way i like it. We went to a pub in Canary Wharf for a few drinks then we went to Goucho for dinner which was excellent. The fillet steak was 9/10 and the red wine was some of the best i have ever had, will certainly be back there again.
The next day was the GSOP £100 nlh which was full to the 80 capacity. I was going along quite steady up t0 12,500 from my starting stack of 8000 when i find 10 10 playing 200/400. UTG limps and after some thought i make it 1500 from the CO, button and blinds fold and after about 15 secs the limper (who i knew nothing about calls). The flop comes Q 9 3 and the guy checks so i check behind. Turn is a 10 which obviously is always a nice sight and i see an even better one when he bets 3000, i move in, he snap calls and flips QQ, gg me!
Next day was the PLO £150 which was equally annoying as i bubbled in 8th with 7 getting paid, thought i played ok getting my fair share of luck on the way but i couldn't find a good spot towards the end. A big congrats to my friend Joe for taking it down and playing a very good tourney and a very well thought out heads up match. I also had a 15% swap with him which softened the blow of bubbling.
So the warm up events were a little frustrating but was still very excited about the 3 day main event which kicked off at 2pm on saturday. Also had quite a few friends in the tourney and a few big names as well including the hit squad and nick persaud among others.
As usual my day 1 was a lot of fun. I cruised up to 28K in the first two levels on what was a pretty weak table all things considered when i decided that i wanted to play a big pot with 97 soooted, lol. I raise in ep to 550 playing 100/200 and get 3 callers, standard. Flop comes 10 8 3 rainbow, bb checks i bet 1200 the 2 behind fold then the bb makes it 3200 leaving himself 10k behind. He had been playing a little fast so i figure i'll just move him in and take it down, he calls with a set of 8's and i'm down to 13K. I then lose 9K against a moron when he check calls a bet on the flop of 10 8 8 with AQ then check calls a bet when another 8 hits the turn and then bets 3K into a big pot when the river comes a Queen and i pay him off with a 10. So i was down to 4k playing 200/400 which was a small problem however i soon got things going again when i got it all in with KJ v 7x on a 9 7 3 board, jack on the river and i'm back in the fight. I double again with 99 v AQ all in pre he flops a flush but i then hit runner runner house to get up to 16K. Finally i find QQ v AQ blind on blind to get back to 30k and i start to wonder what all the fuss was about. The rest of the day was very smooth as i found a few hand and managed to 3-bet in some good spots to end the day with 42,700.
I had about average stack at the start of day 2 with half the field left and we were playing 500/1000/100 so still had some time. Lost 10K early but got up to 60k when i had 88 v 98 on a nice 9 8 2 board and from that moment things went very well indeed. Got my stack up to 100K showing down some big hands and running a few bluffs along the way and then a guy bluffed of his 50K stack against me when i had raised the A5 and it came A 4 5. Shortly after this the strangest hand of the tourney came up playing 800/1600/200. Folds to me on the button and i make it 4500 with A7 off, sb folds then the bb calls and bets 4k in the dark!! The flop comes 9 8 8 and i figure i'm still good so i make it 11K, he calls and then shoves for his last 20K in the dark, WTF?! So the turn comes a 6 and its decision time; running through the hand i think he hasn't got an overpair or a big ace having flat called pre. I make my read that he has J10, qj or Q10 so i call saying that i think ace high is the best hand, he shows Q10 and i win a very bizarre but also a very nice sized pot. With 2 tables left porno Mark gets moved to my left with a mountain of chips so i make a conscious decision to slow down a little and try to avoid playing to many hands with him out of position, thankfully he also seems eager to avoid playing big pots with me so we take it in turns to bully the table and we make it through to the final table as the two biggest stack.
The final table was crazy, i busted in a disappointing 7th for £2200 and Porno Mark smashed it up in record time to take the title and the £12000. Before the final table we had agreed to swap some % so at least i got another £1000 for that. My key hand came up playing 2000/4000/500 when i raised to 11K pre with J10 utg. Folds round to Mark in the bb who calls, flop KQ5 with 2 hearts, he checks i bet 20K he makes it 60K and i move in for 200K more thinking that he can only call with a set, KQ or a big draw like J10 of hearts or AJ of hearts. Shame for me he had one of those hands and i was busto, I don't really regret the way i played the hand cause the stacks were deep enough for the move, oh well.
Went out for dinner and drinks with Mark and a few others after to celebrate which was a lot of fun. Mark lost 3 flips in a row for cocktails which was a nice piece of poetic justice and we ended the night in Mahiki which was a pretty awesome club with the dj banging out some classics.
So that pretty much brings my life up to date, went to Roadhouse last night and got absolutely smashed having decided that dinner is for girls and a pint of gusiness and 2 bottles of wine would be a better idea, worst hangover of 2008.
So August is nearly over and we're now moving on to good old september. I've been getting a bit lazy of late basically just jerking off money on play.com, getting up at 2pm then watching peep show, inbetweeners, green wing and good old teachers instead of doing much work. So i'm going to try and be a little bit more productive this month and try and play over 50 mtt's and a hell of a lot of stt's and maybe even win some $. I also have two massive highlights to look forward to, first is WSOPE event 1 on the 19th which is £1500 with a decent structure can't fucking wait. Also going on a lads golfing holiday to Devon right at the end of the month which should be a good laugh. I've only played 3 times this year so i'm a bit worried about my game but a couple of hours on the range and a bit of happy gilmore and tin cup should have me ready to go.
Picking up where i left off, i played 4 of the FTOPS events and failed to cash in any of them. I never really got going in any of the comps and wasn't close to the business end of things once. A Personal highlight however was busting Mike Mattasuw out the $240 6max comp when i 4 bet him all in pre with J8 V his AA, lol.
After that was all over i headed back to thanet for folk week, which as usual was awesome. Went out every night and the town was very busy but was nice to see all the lads from home with the banter flowing as usual. The annual half pint challenge was certainly the highlight of the trip (drinking a half pint in every pub in broadstairs) and it was achieved in record pace this year, with only 2 of the 13 starters being sick, not a bad ratio at the speed we were going.
I was back in sunny London just in time for my birthday which was a quiet affair, just the way i like it. We went to a pub in Canary Wharf for a few drinks then we went to Goucho for dinner which was excellent. The fillet steak was 9/10 and the red wine was some of the best i have ever had, will certainly be back there again.
The next day was the GSOP £100 nlh which was full to the 80 capacity. I was going along quite steady up t0 12,500 from my starting stack of 8000 when i find 10 10 playing 200/400. UTG limps and after some thought i make it 1500 from the CO, button and blinds fold and after about 15 secs the limper (who i knew nothing about calls). The flop comes Q 9 3 and the guy checks so i check behind. Turn is a 10 which obviously is always a nice sight and i see an even better one when he bets 3000, i move in, he snap calls and flips QQ, gg me!
Next day was the PLO £150 which was equally annoying as i bubbled in 8th with 7 getting paid, thought i played ok getting my fair share of luck on the way but i couldn't find a good spot towards the end. A big congrats to my friend Joe for taking it down and playing a very good tourney and a very well thought out heads up match. I also had a 15% swap with him which softened the blow of bubbling.
So the warm up events were a little frustrating but was still very excited about the 3 day main event which kicked off at 2pm on saturday. Also had quite a few friends in the tourney and a few big names as well including the hit squad and nick persaud among others.
As usual my day 1 was a lot of fun. I cruised up to 28K in the first two levels on what was a pretty weak table all things considered when i decided that i wanted to play a big pot with 97 soooted, lol. I raise in ep to 550 playing 100/200 and get 3 callers, standard. Flop comes 10 8 3 rainbow, bb checks i bet 1200 the 2 behind fold then the bb makes it 3200 leaving himself 10k behind. He had been playing a little fast so i figure i'll just move him in and take it down, he calls with a set of 8's and i'm down to 13K. I then lose 9K against a moron when he check calls a bet on the flop of 10 8 8 with AQ then check calls a bet when another 8 hits the turn and then bets 3K into a big pot when the river comes a Queen and i pay him off with a 10. So i was down to 4k playing 200/400 which was a small problem however i soon got things going again when i got it all in with KJ v 7x on a 9 7 3 board, jack on the river and i'm back in the fight. I double again with 99 v AQ all in pre he flops a flush but i then hit runner runner house to get up to 16K. Finally i find QQ v AQ blind on blind to get back to 30k and i start to wonder what all the fuss was about. The rest of the day was very smooth as i found a few hand and managed to 3-bet in some good spots to end the day with 42,700.
I had about average stack at the start of day 2 with half the field left and we were playing 500/1000/100 so still had some time. Lost 10K early but got up to 60k when i had 88 v 98 on a nice 9 8 2 board and from that moment things went very well indeed. Got my stack up to 100K showing down some big hands and running a few bluffs along the way and then a guy bluffed of his 50K stack against me when i had raised the A5 and it came A 4 5. Shortly after this the strangest hand of the tourney came up playing 800/1600/200. Folds to me on the button and i make it 4500 with A7 off, sb folds then the bb calls and bets 4k in the dark!! The flop comes 9 8 8 and i figure i'm still good so i make it 11K, he calls and then shoves for his last 20K in the dark, WTF?! So the turn comes a 6 and its decision time; running through the hand i think he hasn't got an overpair or a big ace having flat called pre. I make my read that he has J10, qj or Q10 so i call saying that i think ace high is the best hand, he shows Q10 and i win a very bizarre but also a very nice sized pot. With 2 tables left porno Mark gets moved to my left with a mountain of chips so i make a conscious decision to slow down a little and try to avoid playing to many hands with him out of position, thankfully he also seems eager to avoid playing big pots with me so we take it in turns to bully the table and we make it through to the final table as the two biggest stack.
The final table was crazy, i busted in a disappointing 7th for £2200 and Porno Mark smashed it up in record time to take the title and the £12000. Before the final table we had agreed to swap some % so at least i got another £1000 for that. My key hand came up playing 2000/4000/500 when i raised to 11K pre with J10 utg. Folds round to Mark in the bb who calls, flop KQ5 with 2 hearts, he checks i bet 20K he makes it 60K and i move in for 200K more thinking that he can only call with a set, KQ or a big draw like J10 of hearts or AJ of hearts. Shame for me he had one of those hands and i was busto, I don't really regret the way i played the hand cause the stacks were deep enough for the move, oh well.
Went out for dinner and drinks with Mark and a few others after to celebrate which was a lot of fun. Mark lost 3 flips in a row for cocktails which was a nice piece of poetic justice and we ended the night in Mahiki which was a pretty awesome club with the dj banging out some classics.
So that pretty much brings my life up to date, went to Roadhouse last night and got absolutely smashed having decided that dinner is for girls and a pint of gusiness and 2 bottles of wine would be a better idea, worst hangover of 2008.
So August is nearly over and we're now moving on to good old september. I've been getting a bit lazy of late basically just jerking off money on play.com, getting up at 2pm then watching peep show, inbetweeners, green wing and good old teachers instead of doing much work. So i'm going to try and be a little bit more productive this month and try and play over 50 mtt's and a hell of a lot of stt's and maybe even win some $. I also have two massive highlights to look forward to, first is WSOPE event 1 on the 19th which is £1500 with a decent structure can't fucking wait. Also going on a lads golfing holiday to Devon right at the end of the month which should be a good laugh. I've only played 3 times this year so i'm a bit worried about my game but a couple of hours on the range and a bit of happy gilmore and tin cup should have me ready to go.
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