Playing my C-Game :(

Hey!

The DTD weekend was a huge success. I had a great time showing two of my friends around the club and grinding the cash games. Me and the friend I staked were 0/6 in the tournys which isn't too surprising but still I don't think I've cashed in a live tournament since about January, probably 25-30 tournaments. Fishy fishy fishy :).

The cash games on the other hand was where it was at. I absolutely loved playing the £1/£2 cash games this time round making a tidy profit there which covered my tourney failings quite well and some. The first night I played some of the £5/£5 DC but ran pretty pants dropping 1 buy-in (£500) before moving across to hold'em to reduce the variance a little.

So that was a really fun trip. We ended leaving Nottingham at about 6am for the quiet drive home arriving back down south at 9:30am to get some kip in before the Sunday tournies started!

Waking at 6pm, I inevitably didn't feel that fresh, but had some food and sat down to start the grind. Wow, I just could not physically focus on the tables at all. This was BY FAR the worst performance I've ever delivered playing tournaments. I just couldn't be bothered. I really thought about just sitting out and blinding out so I could do something else half way through the session. Inevitably due to not focusing I was getting it in behind, playing terrible and the results showed it. Bankroll took quite a hit to say the least ;) I'm still rolled for the $109's but I'm just really disappointed in my play, or lack of. It would have probably been more fun lighting my money on fire in the backgarden than playing there last night.

The biggest shame of this all is that the TLB contest started, and I've lost all motivation to grind! Gahh! I hope I get the urge back in a couple of days. Then I might make a good post explaining to you all what the TLB involved. But ultimately, it just means that I have to put a ton of volume in on pokerstars and full tilt which at the moment I really can't be bothered to do!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating/quitting poker. Actually, I'm really enjoying it and loved the cash games so much at the weekend that I think I'm going to head into Bournemouth tonight after the £50 rebuy to see if we can get a cash game started.

Tomorrow, I'll hit the gym, maybe beach weather depending, see some friends then hopefully in the evening I'll have the motivation to get back to the tables to grind back some profits! I'll not push myself and might be starting the 2 week TLB challenge 1 week late if needs be as I can't afford to be playing in these tough games if I'm not feeling up for it or even concentrating!

Hope everyone else is slightly more motivated than me anyway! Latersssssssss

A farewell to the Euro Tournies!

Hey!

Today was the last day of grinding the Euro tournies for a little bit as I will be embarking in a tournament leader board competition from Sunday limiting my play exclusively to Full Tilt and Poker Stars. Incoming variance, bad beats and hopefully mad profits. Who knows, would be nice!

I managed to blow up quite spectacularly today in the $44/6 max on Stars from 3/50 to finished in 38th, so the second 6-max tournament, I tried my best not to spew quite so hard. Alas, I did, but still managed to reach the final table in OK shape. The tourny was the $25rebuy that I final tabled on Sunday night. This time I managed to come in 1/6 and busted in 3rd for $1k and change. Not too bad and a profit for the day. It's a bit of a shame though about these iPoker rebuy tournaments don't have alot of play left in them when you reach the final table. They seem to become more like crapshoots really. Alas, still a good score and better than my last attempt. So maybe next time I'll ship the lot!? Would be nice!

Only a quick blog post today as I didn't realise how long this session would last and I still have a lot to do still as well as grab an early night!

GL at the felt all!

Monday Night's Session

Hey!

After a pretty slow start to the day, I managed to get myself pumped up and ready for an online poker session in the evening with my schedule. Differing from last week I did in fact manage to cash in a few tournies making the evening profitable! The highlight of which I came 5th in the iPoker $33rebuy for $1.4k which was nice. And a few other smaller cashes else where. I still haven't quite got my luckbox back as I final table bubbled 2/3 of my $109's but hey, at least I cashed in them!

Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come!

I'm going to set my alarm early tomorrow, probably around 10am, hit the gym then (yes that is early for me) play some of the afternoon tournies registering from 2pm-5pm. The reason I'm doing this is partly to get back into a more normal sleeping pattern, as I'm about 80% sure I'm heading to London on Wednesday and don't want to feel jet-lagged whilst wandering around. I also need to try and sort out some sort of holiday with friends in the evening meaning followed by an early night.

Well that's the plan anyway :). I'm kind of looking forward to the afternoon grind as I've not really done in for a long while and from what I remember, the tournies are quite soft then. I'm not sure though if there are many decent tournaments on the European networks (not FTP or stars) with decent guarantees though.

After driving back from London late Wednesday evening, I'll crash at mine then drive up north to Nottingham for a DTD road trip with a couple of friends! This is going to be really fun and I'm quite excited to play live again, having not done so properly for about a month! I keep telling myself to play the gala crap shoots in Bournemouth, but never get round to it. And probably (maybe, who knows!) have a higher win rate online anyway due to multitabling and better tournament structures.

So it's a pretty exciting week! I'll update tomorrow with how my afternoon grind went! Ciao for now!

Off to Ireland

Tonight was a pretty good end to the otherwise very disappointing week. Although, I didn't manage to pull the week into the black, I did have some success tonight despite spending an absolute bomb on tournament entries tonight!

Last night was a really heavy night out in town, which resulted in me passing out on my friends floor at about 5am and surfacing at 10am with a bit of a hangover. Woops, not the best of starts to Sunday! So as you can imagine, I wasn't sure how capable I would be in playing well tonight.

But nevertheless, I loaded up the majors on all my main sites (ladbrokes, stars x2, boss, full tilt, ongame x2) and got ready at 5pm to begin. Despite being pretty tired I did manage to play, what I thought was, very good poker today. Making good reads and not making too many mistakes. That being said I did spectactularly bust out the $240 Sunday Brawl first hand AA beaten by KK and first hand in the $109/$40k on stars in a pretty interesting spot.

I managed to final table the early $25rebuy on iPoker coming in at 1/6 but I was pretty cold decked losing QQ to AA in blind vs blind to the other big stack and then losing a coinflip to finish me off in 5th place for just shy of $1k.

I also took a nice run in the Boss major (€140) cashing somewhere around 50th and a nice deep run in the Sunday Million cashing in 115th/8027 runners for just over $1k. Lost a pretty massive flip in the end for almost a million chips, but I'm not going to complain as I did win KK>AA earlier in the tournament which allowed me to get that deep in the first place! I think my play near the end got a bit slack as I was so tired from the night before. So I think I'll have to bear this in mind next time I think about having a heavy Saturday night out in town.

But anyway the main news after all the other random dribble! I managed to score myself a €1k package to the Ladbrokes Irish Poker Festival in October. This should be great fun and I can't wait! Ant recommended that I try my hand at satelliting into the tournament earlier on in the week, so I played the €109 freezeout final tonight on Ladbrokes. But my god, it was a bit of a sweat..

From 1/14 with a massive chip lead I thought I'de just be able to fold my way into the money. As the final table came I was still 1/9 but others were catching up. By bubble time the pressure was really on as I had dropped down to 5/6 with 5 packages up for grabs. I managed to slowly rebuild my stack up and as one of the shorties busted KJ beaten by AQ I secured the package.



I literally can't wait to go. Other than DTD it's going to be my first proper live deepstack tournament. If anyone else is interested in going say on the blog and we can meet up. It should be sick. I can't wait! Now I just need to ship the main event for €100k first prize! That would be nice..

I'm playing my schedule again tomorrow night and I'll do an early afternoon session on Tuesday as I need to be up early on Wednesday to drive to London! Hope all is good at the tables! Speak soon!

Brick Brick Brick

Hey!

This has got to be the worst poker week I've ever had so far. I think I've played 68 tournaments and min-cashed one or two lol. Not the best then. I'm just very glad I'm using good bankroll management so it doesn't have a massive effect on my bankroll!

I think this hand http://weaktight.com/1307347 sort of sums up the week quite well. From 1/40 with top 36 paid, to busto in 37th in the $75 on full tilt lol. Ahh well.

I can't complain, the previous two months have been sick. The funny thing about it all really is, I still have the drive to play and the beats are in fact depressing me as much as I thought they would. Then again, this is only 4 days, fast forward another month or two and it may be a different story!

Sunday is a huge huge day online again, I've still got over 100 buy-ins for all the majors so will play my fair share of them and try to satellite into the $500/$1.5million special on full tilt I think. I'm not going to play cards until Sunday, partially to relax and take my mind of poker for a couple of days and partially because although I don't feel like my game is being affected, I may be telling myself that it isn't when it is really. If that makes any sense. Some sort of subliminal tilt or something I don't know lol!

Anyway, I'm suprising optimistic given the circumstances. Going to go play squash with a friend and if no-one is going out tonight, I think it will be a night in with some computer games, couple of beers with friends and some takeaway pizza. How's that for comforting when you're not running quite as good as you'de hope ;)

GL at the tables all! Speak on Sunday! Bustoville here I come!

The Other Side of the Coin

Hey!

I won't bore you all with beat stories, as no-one ever wants to hear them. But I think I can now say the heater, just like the weather outside, is well and truly over. Let's just say that things haven't been going too well on the virtual felt the past few days but nevermind that. I just need to get the volume in, stick to good BR management and grind me back some profits!

John (Burnley Poker on the blog list) just pointed out about a really good value tournament coming up on Jokerst.., I mean Pokerstars.

It is a UK only $100,000 freeroll! You can satellite in for free or buy-in for a $ if you want to make sure you still have some hair left on your head by the end of the evening.

I just read a really, really inspiring post by Seabeast, one of the top MTT players in the world. In this instance, he is referring to people that get staked for tournaments, and I think he speaks a lot of truth. I want to be the effort and commitment in to eventually become one of the best MTT players in the world. I know i will take a lot of dedication, skill, commitment and effort but I'm going to keep at it.

Seabeast Wrote:

maybe my tone was overly harsh. it's not that i think that the types of people i was referring to would never make a dollar if they were able to play an infinite number of tournaments.

it's that i strongly disagree with the prevailing sentiment that just because someone reads the forums and decides they want to be a winning player, they are automatically a winning player.

not being a losing player is not the same as being a winning player.

it's almost as though people think we are all equally good because we read the same threads and register in the same tournaments, and that some of us just have to wait longer for our heaters than others.

eventually we'll all be rich, because lucky us, we all found the same automatic cashcow!

poker is hard to beat. it takes discipline, study, and self control.

very few people ever really take a large amount of money out of the game. this doesn't change whether they are backed or not, or whether they play tourneys, cashgames, or back other players.

you aren't a winning player just because you show up, even if you never make a huge spewy embarassing mistake, or play table games, or tilt off money like other people you know... even if you read 2+2 for two hours a day...

all that is still not enough. it takes more. profit in poker is GROUND OUT, it's not automatically there. it's a privilege. it's earnt, over time, not by *avoiding mistakes*, but by actually becoming a tough player.

there are some people making backers rich at their own expense, because they don't have the stones to deal with natural swings.

then there's other people burning backers' money, because they are able to convince their backers/themselves that they a higher skill level/more self control than they really do.

this is the nature of the game and the business... backers make money from the lack of self-confidence or the financial impatience of their better players (if you're a good player, going out and investing your first 100-200k in something other than yourself is pretty lol), and they engage in a mutually high variance close to neutral ev random walk with the rest (though some are obviously -ev from the outset and others will pleasingly grow into strong players over time).

the difference in skill level between a gboro or a zeejustin or a lilholdem and the average HSMTT poster is way, way bigger than most people think.

ultimately there's the 1-5% of people *getting money*, and then there's the rest.





Tomorrow I'll probably continue the grind and try to claw back some of the losses of the last few days. But other than that, not much to report (other than the final 9 coming soon in the WSOP main event - but other bloggers are more in depth in this than me!)

Cheers, gl at the felt all!

Phil F Ivey

Hey!



I'm sat here and there are 29 left in the 2009 WSOP main event. And Phil Ivey, out of the 6494 players is still in contention currently second in chips. He is by far the best poker player in the world. Without a doubt in my opinion. The guy is just too sick. He's a live player at heart yet still he comes into the online world, sits down with the best and continuously crushes the highest stakes for years. Not only that, he is in fact the biggest winner in online poker in the world. I have no idea how he does it. No one can argue he got lucky a couple of times, this guy has consistently beaten up high stakes poker over hundreds of thousands, most likely millions of hands. It's just incredible really.

Just check out this pot from a while back.



Not only that, but this year alone he has won 2 bracelets, and really, I'm hoping he ships the main event too. That would just be so so epic.

So whilst he's there shipping $10k tournies (I hope!), Ant took down the $109/$12.5k gtd on party poker tonight for a nice $3.3k score. We're still fighting it out to see who can make the most this year. He was ahead for the first few months and I've caught up and over-taken the past two. But it's all to play for now!

So while he's been shipping tournies, I've been bricking them. Tonight I played my schedule and saying it didn't go too well is a slight understatement as I merely min-cashed in a $10r for less than I bought into the tournament for in the first place. Wooops :)



After the session finished a bit earlier than usual thanks to me dumping off my stacks left, right and centre. I decided to watch 7 pounds starring Will Smith. That movie is truly amazing. I'de really recommend you to watch it if you haven't. It does make me wonder though how truly selfless one can be. I won't ruin the movie, but I always wonder how supposed selfless acts really are for most people. I mean celebrities supporting specific charities. Are they doing this to increase a positive public perception of themselves as well as helping out said charity. It's tough to say, but I think in everything we do, at the end of the day everyone has some little selfish agenda of their own, which is why it was really refreshing to watch this movie.

Anyway, I'm going to try to get some sleep in. Good luck at the tables all!

FML Sundays!

Hey!

Sunday is always the big MTT day on every serious poker players calendar. It is when all the sites host their "major" events once a week. Typically these are about $200-$300 buy-ins and have lots of satellite winners and fish creating lots of nice dead money. However, they always get very large fields as well which can result in high variance and big losses! As well as lots of frustration.

Frustration. Yup that about sums up my night lol! Despite winning about £100 net it could have been one hell of a lot more. Unfortunately, the cards were not with me tonight. I managed to final table $109/$18k gtd on full tilt coming in 4/9 but busting in 8th to a very tough field.

I also got really really deep in the OnGame major, but got absolutely fucked over by the cards. I was over 60bb's deep with 20 to go, got 99v88 and AAv44 lost all in pre then ran AQ into AK in blind vs blind. Incredible! From an almost certain final table with some big money on the line, I managed to bust for next to nothing (well $1k, but first place was over $30k!). I guess this is the reality of the game we all love to hate eh!

Never mind, I'm looking forward to the grind next week with my new schedule anyway and going to give the majors another run for their money next week, and hopefully if I do get deep I won't get too fucked over by the cards. I really feel a massive score is close, I just need to keep getting myself in the situations like today by playing good solid poker.

Tomorrow night I'm going for a meal/cinema to see Bruno with a few friends which should be a laugh, so I guess the grind will have to wait til Tuesday!

Gl at the tables all!

New Online Schedule and The New Online Beggars?

Hey!

I'm pretty pissed off with party poker recently. A few reasons for this and why I've decided for the meanwhile to stop playing there:

1) Not having antes of significant value sucks and it is confusing as the play-style required is so different to tournaments with antes. You basically have to tighten up a lot more and it just sucks more as everyone is shallow and the final tables always turn out to be complete 6BB crap shoots.

2) Yesterday I had quite a few party poker tournaments registered for, and they weren't appearing once they started. So I had physically had to draw up the lobby, find the tournament, open the tournament lobby then click take my seat to find out I've missed the first couple of levels and have hence a dwindled chip stack. GG party party.

3) If you manage to remember to actually open up the tournament, inevitably as people get knocked out you will change tables. Like most non-retarded software this isn't a big issue. Oh no, party poker has to be the different special case. So the table jumps to the over side of the monitor, resizes itself to some massive size taking up half my laptop space and just sits there. This wouldn't be an issue if I was 1 tabling. But having several tables up this is the most frustrating thing ever.

4) And of course I busted my $1000 or whatever I had on there too ;)

So I've decided to alter my schedule to as follows:

7:00pm: $108/$15k gtd (Ongame)
7pm: $33/$6k gtd (iPoker)
7:30pm: $33/$3.5k gtd (Full Tilt)
7:30pm: $22r/$19.5k gtd (iPoker)

8:00pm: $26/$21k gtd (Full Tilt)
8:30pm: $10r/$25k gtd (iPoker)
8:30pm: $55/$20k gtd (Full Tilt)

9:00pm: $75/$22.5k gtd (Full Tilt)
9:00pm: $108/$7.5k gtd (OnGame)
9:25pm: $109/$12.5k gtd (iPoker)
9:30pm: $33r/$19.5k gtd (Full Tilt)
9:30pm: €44/€3k gtd (Boss)
9:45pm: $33r/$20k gtd (iPoker)

10:00pm: $129/$30k gtd
10:00pm: €10r/€7.5k gtd (Boss)
10:25pm: $55/$7.5k gtd (iPoker)

11:00pm: €55/€3.5k gtd (Boss)
11:00pm: $55/$8k gtd (OnGame)

I've included full tilt into this, which I'm still umming and arring about. The software is the best, the structure is the best, the payout schedule is the best. But the players who play on there are also the best. Like much much tougher fields. I'll give this schedule a go for a week. Slightly concerned that at around 9pm I'll have too many tables up, so might drop out the $33r on iPoker/full tilt. But I'll give it a proper test-run on Monday onwards.



I was playing some tournies today and when I was deep in the $22r on full tilt, this one guy came to the rail asking for money. But not in the usual way. He said that if he rapped, could we send him some money! So rap he did! It was really quite funny and he wasn't even that bad lol!

Dwade3forMV3 (Observer): yo yo can anyone donate some cash to a broke rapper, ill rap for it

dockevoc: start rapping

Dwade3forMV3 (Observer): aight yo yo check it, my flow is off the chain, my rap game is insane... this is my job to enteertain and i do it better then wayne... so dont complain because this is my nigga dock's domain and hes bout to win this tournament and pop some champagne

Dwade3forMV3 (Observer): yo yo my nigga docck is cold.. like a midnight inaspen he is the president and the assasin... camreas on big lights action... welcome to the tournament he is the main attraction

Dwade3forMV3 (Observer): yoo my man dock is sicker then the bird flu... hes the man and u niggas are his bird food... yall are playing in a whirlpool, you gotta eat or get ate but to dock yall are just bait

Pretty funny and he seemed to be making it up on the spot at quite a quick pace too. I couldn't imagine what he looked like though. Some gangster looking guy sat at his computer begging for $5 trying to rap haha! Oh dear...

Anyway, tomorrow I'm going out to get pissed in town with some of the lads and I'll be back on Sunday. Really looking forward to it and hope I'm not too hungover as I'll be playing a load of Sunday majors again. Bustoville here I come!

Cheers.

Words of Wisdom

Hey!

Warning, this is a mind-dump and non-poker related. So if your after reading my thoughts, carry on, but if your after something more poker-related, just wait for the next article!


I've recently been speaking to a few elders and relatives, and have decided now would be a good time to highlight some key principles that they have expressed as things worth doing to have a fulfilled life.

1) Take every opportunity that is offered to you

-You only live once, so don't pass up opportunities when your young and without commitments. Make the most out of what life offers.

2) Keep up the contacts with your friends throughout the years

-Now that I'm nearing the end of my education at university, it is already becoming increasingly obvious how easy it is to lose touch with close friends from school. I'm going to try to really work hard on this to put an effort in to ensure I maintain my good friends for years to come.

3) Concerning girls and thinking about long-term relationships; if in doubt: don't.

-If you are with a girl and want to take it to the next level (marriage, what-have-you) but have some doubts about the feasibility of this and if it will work effectively in the future then it most likely won't. Supposedly, one would know when it is right.

4) Always have a backup plan for any kind of committment

-This applies particularly for careers for me. I do think that after university I'll take a couple of years out to see if I can make a living playing poker. However, if this all fails, I will hopefully have a solid degree to fall back on which won't make it too difficult to find work again if all my other plans fail.

5) Stay Resilient in whatever you do

-Nothing in life comes easy, and you would have to be foolish for thinking that. Whatever I focus on I want to keep going, overcome difficulties and don't let things stand in the way of my goals. This particularly applies to poker due to the high volatility of the game. Even when I will inevitably be running terrible, losing day after losing day, keep focused, keep learning and keep optimistic. My Grandad highlighted how it is so vital to be able to develop the ability to survive and keep going when nothing is going your way.



These are all pretty wise words that I've gathered from speaking to family members and friends of the family for which I have a lot of respect for and believe that they can offer a lot of useful wisdom that I can incorporate into my own life.

While I'm on this reflective thought pattern, I think I'll note my current plans for the future.

In September I will be starting my final year of university. I'm currently averaging a 58% and it is my aim to bump this over 60% in order to achieve a 2:1 degree or higher. The final year is weighted at 70% of the overall degree so it's really important I just focus and get this good degree. I've spent the previous two years having an amazing time, partying and chilling with great people but now is the time to focus and really make sure I don't fuck this opportunity up.

After my third year, I think I'll take a year off. I've done quite a lot of looking into jobs and it was always my intention to head into London and follow an investment banking career. But after actually visiting Bloomberg and further looking into what is involved in this career path, I'm not really sure yet that this is what I actually want to do. I really don't think that I want to be doing the typical 9-5 just yet especially whilst im still young without any (too much) debt, work commitments or family.

I'll therefore see what poker can bring for me. At the current moment in time, I'm really really enjoying the online grind. Although it would be pretty nieve of me to say that I'de enjoy it to the extent if I wasn't riding the back of the heater I've had the past couple of months. Regardless, I think I've learnt a lot this year not only in poker but how to approach the game in a better angle.

So straight after uni next year I aim to hit Las Vegas as I'll be 21, and can't wait to see sin city itself in all its glory during the WSOP 2010. In the winter, I plan on going skiing in France, possibly living there and in the spring I'de like to revisit Asia. The Summer would undoubtably be Las Vegas once again if my interests still lay with poker. That is the great thing about playing poker, the freedom it allows. There would be no stopping me renting a chalet in France for a couple of months and ski all day and play poker at night. It's definately an enticing thought...

At the end of this year, I'll probably re-evaluate. Who knows, the games may not even be beatable then and I'll have to find something else to do. This may be pursue a masters degree if I'm motivated enough to re-enter education or require it to fit into the kind of job I'm looking for. Or it may be that I enter employment in a field of interest or even invest my bankroll into starting-up my own business.

Whatever lies ahead in the future, I'm pretty optimistic about it all now.

World Cup Of Online Poker

Hey!

Last night I was nitting it out as I went around my friend Chris' house so that he could sweat me playing some no-ante tournaments. He's recently been staying in Texas, USA with the SNGIcons guys that grind a living out in the multi-table SNG's on Full Tilt which don't have antes as so now he is quite knowledgeable on optimal strategy.

Antes make a HUGE difference in tournaments. The notable difference is that you have to adjust to a much tighter strategy as raising from late position to make steals is less effective. Also due to the nature of having no antes, people blind down lower and so the tournament is often a lot shallower. I have to admit now that I really prefer tournaments with good ante's much more than without as I think it allows more postflop play as you are often deeper and it's generally much more fun. However, as party poker effectively doesn't have antes in their tournaments as of yet, it is an adjustment that I will need to make if I want to become profitable in their larger buy-in MTT's. You certainly can't use the same strategy in both ante tournaments and no-ante tournaments.

Well the night went OKish. I managed to blag a second in one of the $75/45 mans for about $800 but bricked all of my tournaments on Party Poker I was playing in the background which resulted in a breakeven/marginal loss night. Not to worry though as I think I learnt a lot more about efficient play without antes. It was in fact surprising according to Chris the number of people who were open shoving 13BB's in late position with far less than premium holdings (Like K7o and stuff) as this isn't +EV given the lack of antes and the risk reward ratio of when you get called!

I bought some software a while back that helps with push-shove decisions and so in the next few days, I'll be looking at some hand ranges for shoving in the party poker tournaments to ensure I'm not shoving too wide/not wide enough!



Other than that, Pokerstars has just released the 2009 World Cup of Online Poker schedule, which I aim to play quite a few events in:

Thursday, September 3rd
14:30 ET - Event 1: $215 NL Hold'em [6-max], $1,250,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 2: $215 Razz, $200,000 guaranteed

Friday, September 4th
14:30 ET - Event 3: $215 PL Omaha [6-max], $500,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 4: $215 NL Single Draw 2-7 w/rebuys, $200,000 guaranteed

Saturday, September 5th
12:45 ET - Event 5: $109 NL Hold'em, $1,000,000 guaranteed
14:30 ET - Event 6: $215 NL 5-Card Draw, $200,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 7: $215 FL Hold'em, $400,000 guaranteed

Sunday, September 6th
12:45 ET - Event 8: $215 NL Hold'em, $1,000,000 guaranteed
14:30 ET - Event 9: $10,300 NL Hold'em [High Roller], $2,000,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 10: $530 NL Hold'em [2-day], $3,000,000 guaranteed

Monday, September 7th
14:30 ET - Event 11: $320 Mixed Hold'em [6-max], $350,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 12: $215 PL Omaha [6-max, 1R1A], $500,000 guaranteed

Tuesday, September 8th
14:30 ET - Event 13: $320 7-Card Stud, $150,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 14: $320 FL Badugi, $100,000 guaranteed
20:00 ET - Event 15: $1,050 NL Hold'em, $500,000 guaranteed

Wednesday, September 9th
14:30 ET - Event 16: $530 NL Hold'em Triple Shootout [10-max], $500,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 17: $320 8-Game, $300,000 guaranteed

Thursday, September 10th
14:30 ET - Event 18: $530 PL Hold'em [6-max], $400,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 19: $320 FL Triple Draw 2-7, $100,000 guaranteed

Friday, September 11th
14:30 ET - Event 20: $215 NL Hold'em w/rebuys, $1,250,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 21: $530 FL Omaha Hi/Lo, $400,000 guaranteed

Saturday, September 12th
14:30 ET - Event 22: $530 NL Hold'em [Heads-Up Match Play], $1,000,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 23: $320 H.O.R.S.E., $400,000 guaranteed

Sunday, September 13th
12:45 ET - Event 24: $215 NL Hold'em, $1,000,000 guaranteed
14:30 ET - Event 25: $25,500 NL Hold'em [High Roller Match Play], $800,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 26: $1,050 NL Hold'em [2-day], $3,000,000 guaranteed

Monday, September 14th
14:30 ET - Event 27: $320 Mixed Event [PL Hold'em, PL Omaha], $400,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 28: $320 NL Hold'em [2X Chance], $800,000 guaranteed

Tuesday, September 15th
14:30 ET - Event 29: $320 PL Omaha w/rebuys, $700,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 30: $530 7-Card Stud Hi/Lo, $200,000 guaranteed
20:00 ET - Event 31: $1,050 NL Hold'em, $500,000 guaranteed

Wednesday, September 16th
14:30 ET - Event 32: $215 NL Hold'em [big antes], $500,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 33: $320 PL Omaha Hi/Lo, $500,000 guaranteed

Thursday, September 17th
14:30 ET - Event 34: $530 NL Hold'em w/rebuys [6-max], $1,000,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 35: $2,100 PL Omaha [6-max], $600,000 guaranteed

Friday, September 18th
14:30 ET - Event 36: $530 NL Hold'em [1R1A], $1,000,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 37: $1,050 FL Hold'em [6-max], $400,000 guaranteed

Saturday, September 19th
14:30 ET - Event 38: $530 PL Omaha [Heads-Up Match Play], $500,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 39: $2,100 8-Game, $400,000 guaranteed

Sunday, September 20th
12:45 ET - Event 40: $215 NL Hold'em, $1,000,000 guaranteed
14:30 ET - Event 41: $10,300 H.O.R.S.E. [High Roller], $1,000,000 guaranteed
16:30 ET - Event 42: $5,200 NL Hold'em Main Event [2-day], $10,000,000 guaranteed


Total Guaranteed Prize Pool: $40,000,000

I've highlighted in Italics the events I would like to play in. I might try to satellite into some of the larger buy-ins like $500 ones, but it is a bit unlikely and will be a spur of the moment thing. Unless of course there is like a $100 satellite freezeout with 30-50 seats guaranteed, but I can't be arsed with these $30rebuy turbos with 1 seat guaranteed as they are too much like crap shoots.

I'm looking forward to the series, I'de like to have a $40,000 roll by then, so the aim is to increase my bankroll between now and then by about $12,000 which I believe I can do if the cards keep falling my way and I get the volume in.



I shouldn't be withdrawing too much more from my bankroll unless I decide to make the trip to Ecuador in the Summer which I'm umming and arring about now. My friend is teaching English at a school over there and it would be pretty different and quite a cheap holiday (except the flights). If I did go we would head into the Amazon rain forest and hike up a volcano including other expeditions I'm sure. But I'm quite hesistant due to the high crime rate over there. For instance there is a lot of armed robbery especially against white foreigners who are deemed to be loaded (and I guess we are to their standards) and hostage taking wanting ransoms. It's hard to deem without being there the reality of all this, but I'll be waying the pro's and con's and go from there!

Hope all is good on and off the felt! Later!

Playing Live Again, top 14 uk tourny player in June!

Hey!

I made a trip up to Dusk Til Dawn where I played on the Thursday and Sunday night, unfortunately missing the deepstack £330 as I had a big family party to attend on the Friday and Saturday.

Although specific hands are a bit vague in my mind now, as I didn't bring my laptop with me on the trip, I can summarise with how the sessions went!

On Thursday I played the £55 tournament with no success (surprise surprise lol!) and there was little going down in the way of non-NLHE cash. So I put myself on the waiting list for the £5/£5 dealers choice game as there was a pretty soft-ish line-up with 2 decent LAG's which I had position on fortunately. Well that night was a massive success with me winning something in the region of £1.1k from my £400 buy-in.

Sunday was a different story though. I got to the club really early at like 2pm and waited around playing a pretty slow game of £1/£2 holdem before the £150/£20k gtd started at 3pm. I think I played quite well in this as I do find it hard to keep focused and play an optimal game as live tournies are so god-damn slow. In the end I busted about 10 off the money (22/150 players roughly) when the CO opened 5x at 500/1000/100ante and I reshoved 16BB's with pocket kings. The CO snap called with aces and that was that! I still don't understand why people raise to such stupidly large amounts with premium pairs. His logic was that he didn't want to see a flop with them as they always get cracked. Sighh liveaments.

So anyway after that 3-4 hours spent folding folding folding I felt like some action and due to it being a series weekend there were some quite juicy cash games going on. There was a really juicy £1/£2/£4 game going where a few players had £2k+ stacks and it was typically £100+ open raises pre which is quite funny, but the waitlist was quite long and I didn't really feel like playing such a high-variance game at the time.

There was also a REALLY juicy £5/£5 PLO game going on which I was quite happy to sit-in. Pete Linton was STEAMING on tilt. He was potting every hand pre and was C-betting 90% of flops and following through on about 80% of turns with his hole range. It was pretty wild. I had direct position on him and so the wait began.

I sat down with £300 and soon doubled up through him when I flopped a wrap and top pair vs his mucked hand giving me about a £550 stack which I wound up to £700ish. This was really small compared to most other players on the table though.

And as soon as I had it, it went. I was dealt AcAsJs4d UTG for a pretty meh-ish ace's hand. I limped in partially for disguise, but also as the table was so aggro, it was quite likely it could get 3/4bet and I could quite happily get it all in. It also offered good deception if I flopped top set as I had been raising myself a fair bit and wasn't playing very passively.

There were a couple of callers and the button made it £20. Pete Linton inevitably repopped like he was for most of his hands to £80. I thought about repotting here but considering I would be struggling to get 25% of my stack in pre, I elected to just flat to save myself some very awkward post-flop situation. The button raiser then reshoved (with 2448 rainbow lol - told you it was a juicy game) and Pete Linton reshovved again to Iso. I called, as the favourite in the hand but only marginally 3-way. The 2448 hit a set of 4's which managed to hold resulting in me reloading again for £300.

After Pete lost his £3,500 he sat with (6 buy-ins) about an hour later, the table broke and I was down about £400ish.

About an hour later a £2/£2 PLO game started and instantly filled when a few randoms sat down at the table. In this one I was to have the better as I hit a few flops and managed to race my £200 stack to £800 quite quickly. From then for about an hour I was pretty card dead and getting a little frustrated as the other regs seemed to be getting all the fish's action whilst I was just slowly dwindling money missing flop after flop and getting dealt a bundle of shit too!

I then got dealt AAsQsJ in early position and limped in which got potted by MP, Re-potted in the SB and I repotted again getting about £400 of my £700 stack in. The SB was a really fishy chinese lady who had loads of gamble in her, playing every hand and basically acting like a complete maniac. She called my 5bet (or whatever it was) leaving us with £160 effective left in the £900ish pot.

The flop came with 4c2cjc. She led into me for £70 into the £900 pot leaving herself with £80 behind. Bitch!! I sigh-shoved in hoping it was some random spew and that she would just check-call my inevitable shove if she did have a flush.

Well she tabled AcKcKs2d. Fabulous. Now I rarely tilt, but after playing 12 hours, basically bubbling the £150 to a 5x moron and then getting it in as a massive favourite and losing in omaha despite hardly playing a hand for the past hour I was starting to grind my teeth a little. I mean I think it was the £70 donkbet into £900 which really set me off lol. I mean come on I was hardly going to fold anyway, any point trying to milk me lol!? The matter wasn't helped at all as the lady insta grabbed the chips and left sitting down at a hold'em table next to me with £100 after clinching the massive pot. LIFETILLLLLLLT.

At this point, it's either I spew off my remaining few £100 or take a break. And this time I wisely decided that I needed to clear my head with some fresh air and a break. Half an hour later I still wasn't too much in the mood to play so at 1am decided to call it a relatively early (?) night and head back to bed picking up a kebab on the way. Comfort food, maybe haha.

I arose at around 11am on Monday and started the drive back home after stopping off and having like the best curry ever at Tamatanga for breakfast/lunch/brunch. It was this spinach and Indian Cheese curry with corriander Naan. Sounds weird, sure, but it was so nice. Like unbelievable! Afterwards, I started my drive back south again stopping by at Bicester village near Oxford which is a designer outlet and decided to tilt-spend some of my weekend winnings. Although I profited about £700 on the weekend, it did feel like a loss because of Sunday. I bought a new Boss watch and some shirts from the sale at Ralph Lauren which I'm pretty happy about.

And that sort of brings us up-to-date! Played a spewy session last night when I was pretty tired from the drive and it didn't go too well. I did manage to come 20th in the pokerstars $109/$40k (550ish runners) but that wasn't quite enough to secure a profit for the day. I took the night off tonight, just playing computer games and watching TV really.

I think I'll start again tomorrow after new-found motivation that last month I finished 14th in the Pocket Fives UK leaderboard for June! It would take something special for me to finish in the top 10 for July as it's already the 8th and I think I've only put in two largely unsuccessful sessions so far! But that can all change ;)

Tomorrow I'm going to hit the gym hard, try to sort out my Neteller account so I can play on OnGame again and then hopefully have a great session on the felt!

$109 Takedown! Heater continues!

Hey!

As can be seen, my new schedule seems to be working quite well as I shipped the nightly $109/$12,500 gtd on iPoker for just over $3.4k. So happy!!

The session was a mixed bunch. For starters, it allowed me to play the optimum number of tables to concentrate on and not resort to ABC poker so that was a good thing, but it felt like it could just have been one of those days...

I came 11th in the party poker $109 final table bubbling and was 10 off the money in the $163 nightly losing 10-10 to 2-2 all in pre. I really felt like today could have been a terrible day on the felt so I even unregistered for the midnight tournies I had planned to play.

Boy, was I wrong. In the end I managed to final table 3 tournaments. I came 8th in the €44/€3500 gtd on Boss and 8th in the $55/$7,500 for just over $300. And of course the biggest one of the night, the $109!

It was a REALLY swingy tournament. I just couldn't get anything going at the start and seemed to be the short stack 10bb'ing until I got a little deeper and found myself with a few cold/decks flips in a row to put me as one of the chip leaders with 20ish left.

I then was involved in a MASSIVE pot for 2x chip lead with AA on a 8d 10d qd board which I lost to AdJc putting me back down to 25bb's but managed to find myself back on the final table in alright shape.

The final table was pretty weird, as there were definately a few soft spots, but I was sat to the left of the most aggressive LAG I think I have ever played with. He just 3-bet and 3-bet and 3-bet me off so many pots. It was really tough to play against and his 3-bet sizes meant that I couldn't 4bet light as it was obvious he was committed. Pretty tough when your not hitting many hands! Luckily I managed to use his aggression against him check/raise bluffing and the such a few times to keep a few chips, but he really was probably one of the only players to ever give me a really hard time at the table. In the end he came 3rd after losing a flip or two to my heads-up opponent.

The HU was quite easy, as my opponent was really loose passive which meant most of my Cbets were going through without harm and it was pretty obvious when he had a hand. He started 3 betting every hand, but stopped after I started 4betting jamming a much wider range.



June has officially been my best month ever, and I really hope this good run I'm in continues into July! I won't be playing online for the rest of the week as I'm going to a house party tomorrow for a friends birthday then heading up north for a family do. It's near Nottingham so I expect I'll pop in to Dusk Til Dawn on Thursday night before heading to see my family on Friday afternoon!

Hope all is good! :D Ciao!