Well that day went weird haha.
As for the schedule, it all kind of went tits-up if you will. But it will make me more prepared for future grind sessions I'm sure. And I'm not even talking about how I ran here...
The slight hiccups which disrupted my night:
-getting the hour difference the wrong way round on the Boss network, thinking their €150 major started at 7pm, rather it started 5pm and I missed it. Woops!
-The friend I was planning on playing at completely forgot and made other plans (other plans on a Sunday, what is this?!?!), luckily another mate that also plays poker invited me over last minute. And he had a reliable internet. Win!
-I found out that all my recent computer slowness/lag issues is to do with my poker tracker 3. Thinking about it, my database must be HUGE by now, and this little laptop just can't handle it with 8 other poker sites up. So I went a good portion of the night without a hud, then turned it on later again.
-I deposited money on BlueSquare Poker to play their £150 GUKPT satellite with 1 seat guaranteed. Well I guess to iPoker that doesn't mean much as there was an overlay and the tournament got cancelled as we were short of 1 person. Lame!
-For some reason UKIPT Manchester 8000 FPP tournament didn't actually have any satellites going to it and that was the only UKIPT Manchester tournament running. Weird :S
-Full Tilt Poker servers went down. Yup, at about 12:30am all of the servers went down. They went down for over 3 hours and all of the tournaments got voided. This meant players get their money back with a chip-chop for the rest of the chips. Very lame, but at least I got my buyin back and a small bit higher than the rake :( For instance I was closing onto the bubble in the double-deuce with well above average chip stack and would expect to get much more than $90 on my average run in the tournament. Oh well!
So that all kind of went tits-up!
On the plus side, I did manage to cash in the party poker major for $600ish, I won 3 seats to the Sunday Warmup valued at $645 from about $100 worth of sats but then bubbled my satellite to the Stars 500. I also managed a good run in the iPoker major coming in the top 100, but failing to get the drive needed to propel me to the final table.
I have a few interesting hands saved I'm going to chat over with friends about different lines. Other than that, was pretty happy with how I played and a side from all of the little upsets had a pretty good night!
Monday, 28 December 2009
Sunday, 27 December 2009
Big Sunday Planned
Hey!
After eating too much, playing lots of board games with the family and chilling its about time to play some poker again I think!
Today being Sunday is undoubtedly going to be a huge day. I have planned on going to a mates house who will also be grinding (unfortunately not the same stakes though) which should be fun and probably insightful too!
So here is the schedule, I'll update at the end of the night with how I do. Here's to running good to finish off 2010 in style:
Sunday Tournament Schedule
-- = satelitte in (spend $100 max)
~~ = Depending on LAG
~~5:00pm: $200/$250k gtd (OnGame)
5:00pm: Play turbo sats to the Warmup
--5:15pm: 8000fpp/UKIPT Manchester (Stars)
5:45pm: $215/$300k gtd (Party)
6:00pm: $109/$40k gtd (Stars)
6:00pm: $215/$750k gtd (warmup - Stars)
7:00pm: €150/€100k gtd (Boss)
7:00pm: $256/$400k gtd (Brawl - Full Tilt)
7:00pm: $320/$250k gtd (BlueSquare)
7:00pm: €50r/€100k gtd (Ladbrokes)
~~8:00pm: $100+$100/$100k gtd (OnGame)
8:00pm: $163/$150k gtd (Full Tilt)
--8:00pm: €200/€50k gtd (B2B)
8:00pm: $55/$200k gtd (80k special - Stars)
8:30pm: £162/GUKPT Satelitte (BlueSquare)
8:30pm: 3000fpp/$1m gtd (Turbo Takedown - Stars)
8:45pm: $109/$30k gtd (BlueSquare)
9:20pm: $22/$200k gtd (Double Deuce - Full Tilt)
9:30pm: $215/$1.5m gtd (million - Stars)
9:40pm: 2 $51 hyper turbo sats to Sunday 500
--10:30pm: $500/$500k gtd (Sunday 500 - Stars)
11:00pm: $216/$750k gtd (Full Tilt)
11:30pm: $215/$200k gtd (2nd chance - Stars)
11:35pm: $59/$32k gtd (Super Turbo - Full Tilt)
12:00am: $109/$80k gtd (Stars)
12:00am: $75/$40k gtd (Full Tilt)
12:05am: $216/$200k gtd (Mulligan - Full Tilt Poker)
1:30am: $109/$15k gtd (Turbo - Stars)
After eating too much, playing lots of board games with the family and chilling its about time to play some poker again I think!
Today being Sunday is undoubtedly going to be a huge day. I have planned on going to a mates house who will also be grinding (unfortunately not the same stakes though) which should be fun and probably insightful too!
So here is the schedule, I'll update at the end of the night with how I do. Here's to running good to finish off 2010 in style:
Sunday Tournament Schedule
-- = satelitte in (spend $100 max)
~~ = Depending on LAG
~~5:00pm: $200/$250k gtd (OnGame)
5:00pm: Play turbo sats to the Warmup
--5:15pm: 8000fpp/UKIPT Manchester (Stars)
5:45pm: $215/$300k gtd (Party)
6:00pm: $109/$40k gtd (Stars)
6:00pm: $215/$750k gtd (warmup - Stars)
7:00pm: €150/€100k gtd (Boss)
7:00pm: $256/$400k gtd (Brawl - Full Tilt)
7:00pm: $320/$250k gtd (BlueSquare)
7:00pm: €50r/€100k gtd (Ladbrokes)
~~8:00pm: $100+$100/$100k gtd (OnGame)
8:00pm: $163/$150k gtd (Full Tilt)
--8:00pm: €200/€50k gtd (B2B)
8:00pm: $55/$200k gtd (80k special - Stars)
8:30pm: £162/GUKPT Satelitte (BlueSquare)
8:30pm: 3000fpp/$1m gtd (Turbo Takedown - Stars)
8:45pm: $109/$30k gtd (BlueSquare)
9:20pm: $22/$200k gtd (Double Deuce - Full Tilt)
9:30pm: $215/$1.5m gtd (million - Stars)
9:40pm: 2 $51 hyper turbo sats to Sunday 500
--10:30pm: $500/$500k gtd (Sunday 500 - Stars)
11:00pm: $216/$750k gtd (Full Tilt)
11:30pm: $215/$200k gtd (2nd chance - Stars)
11:35pm: $59/$32k gtd (Super Turbo - Full Tilt)
12:00am: $109/$80k gtd (Stars)
12:00am: $75/$40k gtd (Full Tilt)
12:05am: $216/$200k gtd (Mulligan - Full Tilt Poker)
1:30am: $109/$15k gtd (Turbo - Stars)
Monday, 21 December 2009
Back to what I'm meant to be
Hey!
After a bit of a chilled day on Saturday and a brief pop at the wild £1/£2 games at DTD I am back down in the (not so) sunny south. It's not yet snowed down here but I have high hopes for a white christmas!
Anyway onto the poker. Well we got back at about 6:30pm. Unfortunately due to my current situation with the internet suffering massively at peak times I didn't even want to try to load up any tournaments having seen my MSN connection constantly disconnect which ofcourse tilted me massively when trying to have a conversation only to find half the messages hadn't been sent. Not the best of starts if your then going to buy into $1000's worth of tournaments!
So I skipped almost all of the majors and started at around 9 o clock playing the Sunday Million and steering clear of Full Tilt due to last weeks Sunday night crisis. You would not believe how much I am looking forward to getting a stable connection and a good computer lol. There is no point at the moment as I'm likely to only be here for a further 4-5 weeks in the next 52 and thankfully some of my close friends here also like to grind poker so I can play round theres when I need to.
But tonight I opted to stay in, partly to get an earlyish night and partly as I'de been staying with them the last few days in Nottingham and felt like a little time apart would do some good!
So back to the poker, well I stuck to the smaller euro sites today on the whole and had some good success!
I got a little bit unlucky on the final table of the €25 rebuy on ladbrokes but ran pretty hot to get to the final table, so I definitely can't complain. It's a nice little payday kind of needed after degening it this weekend buying directly into the DTD £1k which I'm obviously quite under-rolled for (infact using my bankroll management I'de need £200,000 to be comfortable playing that tournament, but whatever :P).
The couple of cashes aren't going to explode my roll to dizzying new heights, but they will keep me afloat before that beautiful 5 figure score rolls along again.
So a bit of an annoying start to the Sunday turning out quite nicely in the end!
After a bit of a chilled day on Saturday and a brief pop at the wild £1/£2 games at DTD I am back down in the (not so) sunny south. It's not yet snowed down here but I have high hopes for a white christmas!
Anyway onto the poker. Well we got back at about 6:30pm. Unfortunately due to my current situation with the internet suffering massively at peak times I didn't even want to try to load up any tournaments having seen my MSN connection constantly disconnect which ofcourse tilted me massively when trying to have a conversation only to find half the messages hadn't been sent. Not the best of starts if your then going to buy into $1000's worth of tournaments!
So I skipped almost all of the majors and started at around 9 o clock playing the Sunday Million and steering clear of Full Tilt due to last weeks Sunday night crisis. You would not believe how much I am looking forward to getting a stable connection and a good computer lol. There is no point at the moment as I'm likely to only be here for a further 4-5 weeks in the next 52 and thankfully some of my close friends here also like to grind poker so I can play round theres when I need to.
But tonight I opted to stay in, partly to get an earlyish night and partly as I'de been staying with them the last few days in Nottingham and felt like a little time apart would do some good!
So back to the poker, well I stuck to the smaller euro sites today on the whole and had some good success!
I got a little bit unlucky on the final table of the €25 rebuy on ladbrokes but ran pretty hot to get to the final table, so I definitely can't complain. It's a nice little payday kind of needed after degening it this weekend buying directly into the DTD £1k which I'm obviously quite under-rolled for (infact using my bankroll management I'de need £200,000 to be comfortable playing that tournament, but whatever :P).
The couple of cashes aren't going to explode my roll to dizzying new heights, but they will keep me afloat before that beautiful 5 figure score rolls along again.
So a bit of an annoying start to the Sunday turning out quite nicely in the end!
Saturday, 19 December 2009
Busto first day
Hey!
Well unfortunately the DTD Grandslam didn't go my way. It was a very very sick tournament though. These super-deepstack tournaments are very fun, and with a good level of patience the rewards can be very decent as well. Yet unfortunately I didn't make day two, busting late into day one after beating 1/3 of the field.
There were a couple of interesting hands I played other than the usual small-pot poker that kept me afloat throughout the tournament.
At 200/400/50 I raise in middle position with AQo to 1100 and get 5 callers (told you there would still be a lot of dead money in the tournament ;) ). At this point I'm pretty much giving up on most flops and will be playing with a slight level of caution even if I hit either my ace or queen.
The flop came down a harmless J22 rainbow. Pretty dry board, but with 2 people checked before me and 3 to act behind, I checked, as it got checked round to deliver a queen on the turn. The queen gave two to spades putting straight and flush draws out there.
The big blind, who was quite an active young player led in from the small blind for roughly 1/3 pot. This didn't send too many warning bells as I had played with him for a few hours and he liked doing an Ivey and taking lots of shots at pots with mediocre holdings. Regardless with the action behind me, and the fact that a raise wouldn't invite in any worse holdings and only get called by hands that beat me, I smooth called the raise.
It folded to the button who was a young guy, yet I had only played about 4-5 hands with the guy. Without knowing much about how he played, seeing as he was young you could infer he is pretty good at poker to be able to afford the buyin for such a tournament, and I had yet to see him around before so its likely he travelled up especially for the tournament meaning he could be quite decent. Anyway, he then raises it up 4x the original bet to around 6000. It folds back round to the original better who quickly mucks and the action returns on me.
At this point, I have to put this guy on a range. I don't believe he has a hand like QJ here as any jack would likely bet the flop in position. JJ is an unlikely holding as he would have undoubtedly squeezed in position, particularly if he was any good. I beat all the other queens, and there just can't be many, if any 2's in his preflop flatting range. However, I could see him squeezing with a combination of drawing hands such as K10, possibly A10 and a variety of spades such as 9, 10 suited and stuff. He had a further 13-14k behind him, about half my stack, so after thinking for a brief moment I set him all in figuring that drawing hands raising on the semi-bluff compromised the majority of his range. Unfortunately this time he snap called me after flopping quads. Woops...
This left me at roughly the 50bb stack, a dented chip stack, but still plenty of room to manoeuvre and no need to panick. Over the course of the next 2-3 hours whilst being pretty card dead, I managed to add an extra 25% to my stack without showing down a hand. We reached level 8 and the blinds had escalated to 400/800/75.
I was dealt AA in middle position and opened it with my 21,000 stack to 2000. It folded to the button, a young girl who 3bet me to 5800. She had been playing pretty tight, solid poker without getting out of line. I doubt she was creative enough here to be 3betting me light, yet still I am concerned that she might do something stupid like 3bet/fold 99/10 10/AK/AQ with the 23bb stack effective. I elected to disguise my hand and smooth call the raise. To a good player with this stack size, this would look very strong, yet I didn't believe she would pick up on this. And so the trap was set.
The board came down as 2s, 4d, 9d. I had the AcAh but checked over to her. She bet almost full pot, and after I check/raised the remainder of my stack in she stated she was priced in and called with AhKd. So the trap worked, and I doubt she would have folded pre to my 4bet shove anyhow. Happy days right? Well unfortunately the turn and river gave running diamonds to see my 95% chance of doubling through and having an above-average stack diminish as I was forced to hit the rail. Big sigh..
Kind of lame, but I was very happy with how I played. I think my live game is improving a lot and I was very happy with how patient I played in the tournament, not stressing about trying to play too many hands but just biding my time and letting the right spots open themselves up to me. It was a great tournament and I'm glad I played it. It's just a shame I couldn't get much deeper in it.
Today is a £300 side event. As of 11am there are only 14 registered for it and it starts at 2am. So I doubt I'll play it to be honest. I think instead I'll hit the cash tables, probably a deepstacked £1/£2 game and see if I can get into the grind and work some stacks up.
Oh well, another day another dollar. Bring on 2010: the year of me winning a live donkament!
Friday, 18 December 2009
Not a good start...
Hey!
Today is the day of the Monte Carlo £1k at DTD. I have been looking forward to this for ages, but things don't seem to be going my way!
Yesterday I must have eaten a dodgy sandwich from Subway, which made the journey from home up to Nottingham a nightmare. Not only was the traffic ridiculously slow due to the snow and grit trucks, but on the way up I started to feel pretty ill and had to stop halfway up the M1 to be sick. Not a good start at all.
luckily I made it up, but didn't feel well enough to play the £50r satellite as I intended to see if I could blag a cheap seat. Instead, feeling like complete death, I went to catch a couple of hours sleep at 5pm only to wake up at 5am this morning, feeling refreshed but completely out-of-sync sleepwise. I think it's going to be a struggle today if play goes onto 2pm, but all I can hope is that I make it that long, play my A-game and don't start to feel too unwell again. So fingers crossed for that.
Other than that, had a pretty frustrating session on Wednesday night where I final table bubbled two big-ish tournaments and spewed hard in the $50r on ongame. I was 1/55 with 50 paid, but the bubble abuse didn't go well and ended busting in 45th place. Woops.
So now it's turn around time. Come on Monte Carlo... one time!
Today is the day of the Monte Carlo £1k at DTD. I have been looking forward to this for ages, but things don't seem to be going my way!
Yesterday I must have eaten a dodgy sandwich from Subway, which made the journey from home up to Nottingham a nightmare. Not only was the traffic ridiculously slow due to the snow and grit trucks, but on the way up I started to feel pretty ill and had to stop halfway up the M1 to be sick. Not a good start at all.
luckily I made it up, but didn't feel well enough to play the £50r satellite as I intended to see if I could blag a cheap seat. Instead, feeling like complete death, I went to catch a couple of hours sleep at 5pm only to wake up at 5am this morning, feeling refreshed but completely out-of-sync sleepwise. I think it's going to be a struggle today if play goes onto 2pm, but all I can hope is that I make it that long, play my A-game and don't start to feel too unwell again. So fingers crossed for that.
Other than that, had a pretty frustrating session on Wednesday night where I final table bubbled two big-ish tournaments and spewed hard in the $50r on ongame. I was 1/55 with 50 paid, but the bubble abuse didn't go well and ended busting in 45th place. Woops.
So now it's turn around time. Come on Monte Carlo... one time!
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
The 15th December
Hey!
Yesterday was in fact my 21st birthday, meaning I am now able to go to Vegas and ship me some bracelets! I'de already done most of my celebrations with friends before this in terms of partying in Nottingham and a quad biking session is Sherwood forest. The quad biking was too fun mainly due to the fact that the tracks were literally mud-baths, allowing one to slide round the corners at full speed spraying mud everything.
(I'm the guy to on the left)
So I was pretty busy yesterday with friends and family all day so I didn't play any poker. But then again, doubt I would have wanted to. Running bad on your birthday would be pretty lame!
The night before I played however and had partial success coming 3rd in a €75 with 1 rebuy tournament on one of the euro networks.
The tournament is the only one on my 'schedule' that doesn't have antes, so it plays very different, and in my opinion much worse as it turns into such a crap-shoot by the end. I was 1/3 with like double second, but there wasn't much in it as my 15bb's 3 handed wouldn't last long losing a couple of flips. I also managed to do well in a $26 heads-up tournament coming in the final 20 out of several hundred people. Not sure why I entered it, but had a bit of a craving for some HU action and it paid off to a respectable $180. Can't complain there!
I'm going to do one last session tonight at the tables before heading up to Nottingham on Thursday for the DTD MonteCarlo. I'll play the last €30r satellite tonight to see if I can nab myself one of the seats, but won't be too disheartened if I don't. In a way, I see the £1k as being a birthday present to myself. So for the love of christ, please let me run good in it one time!! I hope I manage as despite my best efforts my sleeping schedule still seems to be pretty fucked with me waking naturally at really weird times in the day/night. Yesterday I woke naturally at 11am, today 5am. Weird, but whatever. I'll try to stay up the whole day today rather than taking a nap so that tomorrow I can sleep in until like 11am before the drive up North.
Hope everyone else is doing well lately. See ya soon!
Rap freestyle featuring Phil Helmuth. Doubt I've ever laughed as much when he tried rapping. Please tell me he's drunk!
Yesterday was in fact my 21st birthday, meaning I am now able to go to Vegas and ship me some bracelets! I'de already done most of my celebrations with friends before this in terms of partying in Nottingham and a quad biking session is Sherwood forest. The quad biking was too fun mainly due to the fact that the tracks were literally mud-baths, allowing one to slide round the corners at full speed spraying mud everything.
(I'm the guy to on the left)
So I was pretty busy yesterday with friends and family all day so I didn't play any poker. But then again, doubt I would have wanted to. Running bad on your birthday would be pretty lame!
The night before I played however and had partial success coming 3rd in a €75 with 1 rebuy tournament on one of the euro networks.
The tournament is the only one on my 'schedule' that doesn't have antes, so it plays very different, and in my opinion much worse as it turns into such a crap-shoot by the end. I was 1/3 with like double second, but there wasn't much in it as my 15bb's 3 handed wouldn't last long losing a couple of flips. I also managed to do well in a $26 heads-up tournament coming in the final 20 out of several hundred people. Not sure why I entered it, but had a bit of a craving for some HU action and it paid off to a respectable $180. Can't complain there!
I'm going to do one last session tonight at the tables before heading up to Nottingham on Thursday for the DTD MonteCarlo. I'll play the last €30r satellite tonight to see if I can nab myself one of the seats, but won't be too disheartened if I don't. In a way, I see the £1k as being a birthday present to myself. So for the love of christ, please let me run good in it one time!! I hope I manage as despite my best efforts my sleeping schedule still seems to be pretty fucked with me waking naturally at really weird times in the day/night. Yesterday I woke naturally at 11am, today 5am. Weird, but whatever. I'll try to stay up the whole day today rather than taking a nap so that tomorrow I can sleep in until like 11am before the drive up North.
Hope everyone else is doing well lately. See ya soon!
Rap freestyle featuring Phil Helmuth. Doubt I've ever laughed as much when he tried rapping. Please tell me he's drunk!
Monday, 14 December 2009
The start of the xmas grind
Hey,
Well Sunday in a nutshell was epic fail. I started later than usual at about 7ish after having a really nice roast dinner with the family. Chris and Marlow came round too to grind. Well my parents have decided to change our internet package to one of these cheap bundle things with talktalk or some shit ISP. Nice choice, now the internet is about as reliable as Garry Glitter looking after your children. It disconnected a ton which tilted me. Not only that, but full tilt decided to have 3 mini-FTOPS which attracted almost a million runners (ok, exaggerations exaggerations :P) which caused the software to crash blinding me out in all the tournies I was in forcing me to unreg for the rest too. I emailed FTP complaining and hope to get my buy-in back for a few. For instance I didnt play a single hand in the Sunday Brawl as the software was just crashing left-right and centre. I tried loading up FTP on chris' and Marlows laptop using my account and they had the same problem. Yet when they loaded up on their laptops without entering one of these FTOPS 10,000 runner tournaments it worked fine (other than the internet blips and disconnects!).
Anyway by 11:30 having bricked every single tournament getting some horrific beats, I was too stressed and annoyed with the whole thing, unregistered the rest and watched "Taken". A pretty good decision I'm sure. Such a good movie, totally relaxed me and I went to bed at about 2am with a smile on my face.
Now, for some reason my body clock is still mega-fucked up. I woke naturally at 4:30am, wide awake lol. Probably not the best of things to do. With little else to do I thought, fuck it, and loaded up a load more tournaments. This time I ran a little better and managed to final table the $30 1r1ao on full tilt coming 2nd for $2k. I'm not sure if it's a Sunday saver, but it certainly helps me undig the hole I buried myself in from the previous nights grind.
I think I could have shipped this tournament quite easily but the guy that won it ran like god winning AA to A7, JJ to AK and KQ to 66 all in preflop. I'm still pretty happy I turned this around and it's definitely a confidence boost.
I have no idea what to do about this internet problem. It's literally so stressful having the internet disconnect continuously every 30mins-1 hour at peak times especially when a lot of the poker software really spazzes out when it gets disconnected then leading to crashing my laptop. I think it's probably worth getting a better ISP, but I'm probably only going to be at home playing, including this month, for 2 months in the next year. So it's not worth buying a full package and I know my parents won't go ahead and buy a second internet line just for me as they don't use the internet at home anyway.
I want to get a wireless router internet card thingy as a backup as well. From doing a little research I think you can use an iPhone as a wireless router, but because I live in the sticks a bit my mobile reception is pretty bad here, so I don't even know how efficient that would be. I wish I knew how to hack my neighbours wireless ;)
If anyone who's living in the UK knows of a good ISP that is reliable with good speeds at peak times, could you leave a comment. I would be very grateful, or if you know of any alternates I could use as a backup just in case my connection goes down for whatever reason.
Hope all is good. Peaceee!
ps. for humour, check this link. I was crying with laughter: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=120921191
Well Sunday in a nutshell was epic fail. I started later than usual at about 7ish after having a really nice roast dinner with the family. Chris and Marlow came round too to grind. Well my parents have decided to change our internet package to one of these cheap bundle things with talktalk or some shit ISP. Nice choice, now the internet is about as reliable as Garry Glitter looking after your children. It disconnected a ton which tilted me. Not only that, but full tilt decided to have 3 mini-FTOPS which attracted almost a million runners (ok, exaggerations exaggerations :P) which caused the software to crash blinding me out in all the tournies I was in forcing me to unreg for the rest too. I emailed FTP complaining and hope to get my buy-in back for a few. For instance I didnt play a single hand in the Sunday Brawl as the software was just crashing left-right and centre. I tried loading up FTP on chris' and Marlows laptop using my account and they had the same problem. Yet when they loaded up on their laptops without entering one of these FTOPS 10,000 runner tournaments it worked fine (other than the internet blips and disconnects!).
Anyway by 11:30 having bricked every single tournament getting some horrific beats, I was too stressed and annoyed with the whole thing, unregistered the rest and watched "Taken". A pretty good decision I'm sure. Such a good movie, totally relaxed me and I went to bed at about 2am with a smile on my face.
Now, for some reason my body clock is still mega-fucked up. I woke naturally at 4:30am, wide awake lol. Probably not the best of things to do. With little else to do I thought, fuck it, and loaded up a load more tournaments. This time I ran a little better and managed to final table the $30 1r1ao on full tilt coming 2nd for $2k. I'm not sure if it's a Sunday saver, but it certainly helps me undig the hole I buried myself in from the previous nights grind.
I think I could have shipped this tournament quite easily but the guy that won it ran like god winning AA to A7, JJ to AK and KQ to 66 all in preflop. I'm still pretty happy I turned this around and it's definitely a confidence boost.
I have no idea what to do about this internet problem. It's literally so stressful having the internet disconnect continuously every 30mins-1 hour at peak times especially when a lot of the poker software really spazzes out when it gets disconnected then leading to crashing my laptop. I think it's probably worth getting a better ISP, but I'm probably only going to be at home playing, including this month, for 2 months in the next year. So it's not worth buying a full package and I know my parents won't go ahead and buy a second internet line just for me as they don't use the internet at home anyway.
I want to get a wireless router internet card thingy as a backup as well. From doing a little research I think you can use an iPhone as a wireless router, but because I live in the sticks a bit my mobile reception is pretty bad here, so I don't even know how efficient that would be. I wish I knew how to hack my neighbours wireless ;)
If anyone who's living in the UK knows of a good ISP that is reliable with good speeds at peak times, could you leave a comment. I would be very grateful, or if you know of any alternates I could use as a backup just in case my connection goes down for whatever reason.
Hope all is good. Peaceee!
ps. for humour, check this link. I was crying with laughter: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=120921191
Sunday, 13 December 2009
The year in review
Hey!
Well I've almost been blogging for a full year now and it's getting to that time when I want to be thinking about looking back at my 2009 goals and projecting achievable aims for 2010.
(click image to expand - shows my main sites I play on. Also played a lot of volume on the old cryptologic (RIP :( ) and Ladbrokes which sharkscope doesn't track. But I'm up a fair bit on both (particularly crypto).
This year on the online front I've had a series of nice smallish scores, my biggest totally ~$12k which has propelled my bankroll way above my financial target for the year. I've won quite a bit of money in live cash too and a small 4-figure number in online cash, despite not playing it much at all. I have however, bled a lot of money at live tournaments over a smallish sample. I aim to rectify this next year in a big way. It kind of sucks the way that I'm break even on stars after several hundred games this year despite being up over $10k at some points. But having a 100-200 buyin downswing is supposedly pretty common especially due to the ridiculous field sizes of these tournaments and the top-heavy pay-out structures. I've historically ran bad on that site with 18 players left, so here's to 2010 turning that around!
2009 goals:
[x] Be properly rolled for $215 tournaments
-Success, yet to make a big score yet though. Had 3 top 18 finishes in smaller majors though.
[x] Play a big live event
-Playing a £1000 (DTD montecarlo in a week, one time?!), €1000 and $5000 tournament (won the sat for, not played yet!). So it's not huge, but it's pretty big for a guy that used to grind £5rebuys and £10 freezeouts at my local gala.
[x] Play more deepstack tournaments at Dusk Til Dawn (local card-room)
-I should have written play more deepstacks and turn a profit at them. I did achieve this goal, but went 0/10 this year. Sigh.
[x] $25,000 profit online
-Crushed this to a healthy $50k
2010 Goals:
[ ] Get a big live final table cash. Get there by keeping up the volume and supporting the buy-ins through winning online
[ ] Play more live £1k's on the UK poker circuit
[ ] Final table a major
[ ] Get my bankroll up to $150,000 by the end of the year
[ ] Turning 21 in a few days so, have great fun in Vegas over the summer, meet 2p2'ers and win money!
So poker-wise I'm very happy about achieving all of my goals. I'm going to keep playing a balance between the Euro sites and the US sites, sticking to game-selection and keep working on my game in the mean-time. I've got a busy year ahead, what with me graduating and plans on travelling afterwards. I didn't put in a ridiculous volume this year apart from during the Summer, so if I can get a similar volume in during 2010 I will be happy. It would be nice to crush live, but the variance is huge. Regardless, I do find live donkaments fun, so bring it on.
Overall, a very solid 2009, and here's to a great and successful 2010. Bring it on!
Well I've almost been blogging for a full year now and it's getting to that time when I want to be thinking about looking back at my 2009 goals and projecting achievable aims for 2010.
(click image to expand - shows my main sites I play on. Also played a lot of volume on the old cryptologic (RIP :( ) and Ladbrokes which sharkscope doesn't track. But I'm up a fair bit on both (particularly crypto).
This year on the online front I've had a series of nice smallish scores, my biggest totally ~$12k which has propelled my bankroll way above my financial target for the year. I've won quite a bit of money in live cash too and a small 4-figure number in online cash, despite not playing it much at all. I have however, bled a lot of money at live tournaments over a smallish sample. I aim to rectify this next year in a big way. It kind of sucks the way that I'm break even on stars after several hundred games this year despite being up over $10k at some points. But having a 100-200 buyin downswing is supposedly pretty common especially due to the ridiculous field sizes of these tournaments and the top-heavy pay-out structures. I've historically ran bad on that site with 18 players left, so here's to 2010 turning that around!
2009 goals:
[x] Be properly rolled for $215 tournaments
-Success, yet to make a big score yet though. Had 3 top 18 finishes in smaller majors though.
[x] Play a big live event
-Playing a £1000 (DTD montecarlo in a week, one time?!), €1000 and $5000 tournament (won the sat for, not played yet!). So it's not huge, but it's pretty big for a guy that used to grind £5rebuys and £10 freezeouts at my local gala.
[x] Play more deepstack tournaments at Dusk Til Dawn (local card-room)
-I should have written play more deepstacks and turn a profit at them. I did achieve this goal, but went 0/10 this year. Sigh.
[x] $25,000 profit online
-Crushed this to a healthy $50k
2010 Goals:
[ ] Get a big live final table cash. Get there by keeping up the volume and supporting the buy-ins through winning online
[ ] Play more live £1k's on the UK poker circuit
[ ] Final table a major
[ ] Get my bankroll up to $150,000 by the end of the year
[ ] Turning 21 in a few days so, have great fun in Vegas over the summer, meet 2p2'ers and win money!
So poker-wise I'm very happy about achieving all of my goals. I'm going to keep playing a balance between the Euro sites and the US sites, sticking to game-selection and keep working on my game in the mean-time. I've got a busy year ahead, what with me graduating and plans on travelling afterwards. I didn't put in a ridiculous volume this year apart from during the Summer, so if I can get a similar volume in during 2010 I will be happy. It would be nice to crush live, but the variance is huge. Regardless, I do find live donkaments fun, so bring it on.
Overall, a very solid 2009, and here's to a great and successful 2010. Bring it on!
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Christmas is coming, that means time to grind!
Hey!
After two of the most stressful weeks of my life, I can finally put my feet up in my nice clean room and enjoy some of the peace and quiet that comes with going home in the holidays.
The last month or so in general has in fact been manic. With being a final year at university, the work rate has increased dramatically from the previous two years resulting me getting on average 2-6 hours sleep a night and sleeping at the most random of times. I swear I must be permanently jet-lagged at the moment due to the strains I've put on my body clock. Looking in the mirror, I do feel worn out. Not looking too healthy or fit.
I guess that can all be attributed to excessive takeaways, all-nighters every night, work-related stress, binge drinking to the max, smoking wayyyy too much and to sustain this lifestyle; large quantities of caffeine in various forms.
So, the plan now is detox. I'm back home, I can get in a good sleeping pattern, get good volume in poker-wise, start eating properly again and working out. I'm at home just over a month, so it will be interesting to see if I can stick to this before the onslaught of my last semester at uni will recommence in January. Which will be messy. Guaranteed :).
On the one hand, I am by far having the most fun I think I've ever had at uni, but on the other hand, I don't think this lifestyle is sustainable unless I plan on an early death lol.
So over the course of the next month, I plan on:
-Regular sleep times
-Eating healthy again with lots of vegetables and no takeaways
-Cut down on drinking
-No smoking at home of any form
-Gym pretty much every day
-Try to run in the mornings when I wake up (unless it's raining - yup I'm a wimp)
-Try to study pretty much everyday to prepare myself for my January exams
I'll probably try to follow a day-plan similar to this:
10:00am: go for a run
11:00am-2:00pm: start work
2:00pm-3:00pm: break for an hour
3:00pm-5:00pm: work
5:00pm-7:00pm: Gym
8:00pm-11:00pm: register tournaments online
2:00am: sleep
This will obviously be disrupted quite a bit due to social outings, family get-togethers etc., but on your typical holiday-day, I will try to follow this outline to lead me back towards a healthy lifestyle. To be honest it would be naive if I was going to think I could go cold-turkey on say the drinking etc. at this time of year, but a bit of moderation will get me far I'm sure :)
I'll also be putting in a ton more volume that I have been as of late, so expect more regular blog updates!
Merry xmas all!
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Live Tournament Leaks
As regular readers of the blog will realise, whereas I have had great success this year with online MTTs over 1000+ games averaging 100%+ roi on multiple sites, I have been struggling a lot with live poker MTTs. Now I can attribute some of this to running bad in races and what have you. But it would be totally naive to believe that my game is perfect and everyone else is just a bunch of massive luckbox fish.
As such, after my monthly donation to the DTD £300 this month, I have done a lot of thinking, going through the hands I played and thinking about various alternate options I could have taken in all the significant hands I've played. This month I managed to do pretty well, getting down to the final 90/275 runners but losing a race with AK to 99. As I said, I could just blame this on bad luck, think everyone else is crap and I just run bad. But instead, I am taking this recent bad run of cards to reflect particularly on my live game.
Here are 5 key areas where I think I can improve. And I will try really hard to improve upon for my next live tournament; the £1090 DTD Monte Carlo later on this month.
1) play more solid, dont get involved with mediocre holdings out of position in tournaments where u cant reload ur stack. It's too easy in live tournaments to see yourself slowly being ante'd away and not playing a hand in 2 orbits makes a8suited under the gun look like a very playable hand. Nope, nope, nope. Muck it and smile.
2) dont limp behind speculative hands like 8 10o 100bb deep in late position, will just get me in trouble and i wont flop 2 pair/straight and get paid off enough to make it worthwhile
3) keep hand reading and putting people on ranges when not in the hand (i do this quite well)
4) patience, dont raise marginal hands from early position as much as unlike online more people like to see the flop with hands they should be folding so its not as effective (like raising kjs UTG+1 with antes)
5) If limping behind with say with Q10s on the button to 3-4 limpers, then some guy in the blinds raises it up but everyone calls. I think there is much less value in calling with such a dominated hand the majority of the time despite the preflop value.
Basically, most of these points come down to patience, and not rushing to get into lots of pots with big post-flop decisions. The live tournaments Im playing these days are all deep-stacks with good structures. There is no need for me to be getting myself involved in super-marginal decisions when I can wait for more optimal spots and exploit the leaks that a lot of live recreational players seem to have).
I think a fair bit of this comes in the little ways I play. Such as when the cards are dealt, I look at one as soon as it is dealt then look at the other. I don't agree at the moment with looking at my cards when its my turn to act as I'm scared of giving information away from timing tells, and like to think about how I'm going to play my particular hand as the action before me unfolds. I do however think that looking at each card individually as its dealt (as I currently do) is also pretty bad. I think it leads to further impatience live when you get dealt an ace to receive a rag kicker and I start to get annoyed how every hand I'm dealt seems to be pretty shit.
I'm very happy with my short-stack play, and if I incorporate some of the other points I mentioned above, I see no reason why I can't have great success in the live arena.
Anyway! It's Sunday so that's online grinding day. I watched a video of TravestyFund last night, who is a very very sick grinder whose game I have a lot of respect for. His thought process is so decent, so I hope some of it runs off into my game tonight and I ship something big. I'm not playing as many tournaments as I usually would on a Sunday and am instead focusing on quality rather than quantity. Bring it on.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Up up up we go
Hey!
I'm still a slight way off the $50k peak I reached in the Summer but its all coming back slowly but surely.
After a pretty disappointing night, getting 1-outered in the DTD sat and generally running a bit shit, I managed to pull something together in the iPoker $30rebuy/$20k gtd. I came in to the final table after some heavy abuse with a 2:1 chip lead over second place at the time. By headsup he was leading, but I drew him back to evens. It was a pretty epic headsup game with the chip lead swapping several times, but as we both were down to 20big blinds, I couldn't find a fold on a Q highflop, unfortunately this time he had me out-kicked to claim the victory.
Still, a pretty nice score and the moneys all going back in the right direction.
This weekend I'm playing the DTD £330, and on Sunday I'm debating playing the ECOOP main event which is a $1500 buyin. Obviously I would have to sell at least 60% of my action, but it would be pretty fun regardless. Not sure yet, but if I do decide in the next couple of days, I'll update the blog in case any readers fancy buying a % of me to see if I can make you rich if I bink something big :)
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
A change of luck?
I feel that lately I've been having a pretty sour run both online and live, so it's nice to finally be able to put some scores together to help work my way out of this downswing I seem to have found myself in! Which, may I add is kind of expected due to the heater of a summer I had!
Anyway, this is just a little brag post, as I haven't hit a big $5k+ score in a while so happy days here. I'm still not out of this downswing but I'm full of confidence and ready to kick ass, especially over christmas break.
This weekend I'll be doing my monthly donation to Dusk Til Dawn at their £330 weekend. I really feel like I'm due something big soon, I can't keep getting fucked over at live poker, so bring on the weekend. I've got high hopes.
Hope everyone else has been running good lately, speak soon!
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