Monday 31 August 2009

So so close!

Hey!

I've had a really wild few days since my last post on here. On the wednesday night I managed to final table another $20r on full tilt coming in with a big stack, but to a slight anticlimax my aces couldn't hold vs K10 against the other chip leader who seemed desperate to try and outplay me in literally every pot for some reason lol. Oh well, 1-0 to him I guess! So I finished in 5th for $1.8k, which still is a pretty nice payday and had me up for the day.

After that I took a few days off poker. On the Thursday night my family and I headed out to this pretty nice Thai restaurant in Poole to celebrate my Sisters birthday and when we got home at 10pmish I figured I wouldn't load tournies as I have to be up really early to go banana boating with friends the following morning. Well that plan failed pretty epically ;)

Although I didn't play any poker, I just could not bring myself to feel remotely tired due to my somewhat nocturnal sleeping pattern that the cruel harsh world of MTT's has led me to. So come 5am, I have to wake in 3 hours having watch 2 movies, 2 poker shows and 2 episodes of 24 lol. In the end I did manage to get some kip but the early morning wake up was as painful as you can imagine.

The banana boating with friends was really fun, especially ringo'ing at the end. This is basically two big inflatable rings at the back of a speedboat bombing through waves at some crazy speed resulting in you and friend smashing into each other and flying off into the water. I would definitely recommend ;). It sure woke me up anyhow from my lack of sleep the previous night.

The afternoon was spent eating and chatting in the pub, followed by me driving for 2 1/2 journey to London to get the party mood for the weekend started! I arrived at my friends house in London pretty latish due to some really bad traffic on the roads, probably as a result of it being a bank holiday weekend in England. The plan was to stay at my friend, Toms house over the weekend, but as soon as I arrive in London I get a text saying something along the lines of "I'm not coming out as I don't feel very well, sorry mate". Cheers, team stitch up lol. Well I couldn't be arsed to sort out any kind of hotel or anything then as the time was getting on and some serious prelash drinking was required. I ended up thinking, well I'll probably be so pissed by about 5am that the car will be a good enough place to get a few hours kip in anyway.

We headed off to this dim sum restaurant which to those that don't know is like a special Chinese dumpling style cuisine originally found in Tea houses in China hundreds of years ago. When I visited China last summer we had these almost every day for breakfast and they are unbelievably nice. A bit of a rare find in England outside the capital anyway I believe as this was the first dim sum restaurant I've seen. Nevertheless it was seriously tasty. I washed the food down with 3 pints of beer, 2 cocktails and an after dinner shot. It had to be done ;)

We then proceeded to the club in order to get there before 11pm or something like that as we were on the guest-list. I didn't really know what was going on just following the crowd. The club in question is one called "24" which I hadn't heard of before. I don't know if this was a particularly good night or I was in a good mood with good company or what, but it was the best club I think I've ever been to.

The atmosphere, music, everything was just immense. Also there was literally not a single ugly person in the whole club. Just stunning women everywhere. The only downside being how much the drinks were. And I'm talking expensive. Well, to put it bluntly the first cocktail I bought cost £100. Haha yeh, £100 for a goddamn cocktail. But don't worry it was a bit more special than your average weatherspoons cocktail. This thing was fucking huge. It was in, quite possibly the biggest glass I've ever seen and was designed for a party of minimum 10 people. It had flashing lightbulbs, sparklers, seemingly a fruitbowl on top of it. Everything, oh and it tasted amazing lol. It took two bartenders 5 minutes to make and then they had two of them carry it over to our table.

So we all sat down with the ridiculously oversized glass statue in front of us with different alcohols just chilling and then one of the bouncers comes up to us and says we have to move. "Are you joking?" is the reply, considering the effort it took to get this massive glass statue thingy onto the table in the first place. He was quite apologetic and explained that the bar tenders had sent us to the wrong table and girls aloud had reserved this table for themselves and friends. Ship it :)



Not only that, but some of the Arsenal football players were also in the club at the same time. Pretty baller. As the night went on the action continued, the music was pumping and it was seriously awesome. I was dancing with some of my girly friends and we decided to get on the Sambuca. I ordered 10 shots at the bar for us to neck and got asked for £80 for them. Christ. Well we split the cost between four of us and the shots ended up being 75cl measures (aka tripple shots). Obviously the girls all being pretty slim were complete lightweights so I ended up drinking most of their shots after they left me with 6. Man was I pissed :) I won't give details of the rest of the night but it was very fun!

Saturday night was pretty much the same after I came back to Bournemouth, we had drinks with a BBQ then headed into Bournemouth for a night out. No way near as good as London, and literally full with pikeys, police and fights, but still better than nothing I guess. I swear even the women weren't remotely as attractive, but then again my beer goggles might not have been working as well on the second night out on the trot.

Anyway, I'm getting bored of writing long life stories, so onto the poker! Well after a pretty exhausting and sleep deprived couple of days I was seriously knackered by Sunday. I woke up at 2:00pm and by 9:00pm was back asleep again. To be woken up next door at about 11ish. Feeling a bit more awake this time, I loaded up some of the later tournaments on Full Tilt and Stars and felt like I was running pretty horrifically all over the shop and I'm sure not playing my A-Game either.

Despite all this I did manage to run good in one tournament, which was worth running good in! The stars $109 nightly turbo!



Having just updated the bankroll, I realise that I just reached my target of $40,000 before the end of August. Wahooo! Until I realised that the exchange rate fluctuated and I'm $140 off target lol! Goddamn! Regardless this is the highest my bankroll has ever been and I'm really happy with how the Summer has gone. I've put in a ton of volume playing long session, I feel like my MTT game is improving a lot and I'm still enjoying it. Oh and I've made a tidy $ here and there along the way. That's always nice to know too.

Oh, I'm just in the money on my last tournament the $33rebuy on full tilt, if I come top 18 I have a $40k bankroll! If not, tomorrow is another day.

Gl at the felt all!

Wednesday 26 August 2009

Augustus

Hey,

I'm playing tonight then having some days off until Sunday when I'll as usual busto a good portion of my roll or cash for something big! Swingy sundays lol! I can't wait until I'm actually rolled for the $215s so that the pressure of not cashing in any isn't that bad. I guess on a usual schedule I probably spend $2k-$3k on Sundays which is still a lot %wise of my bankroll, so I really hope I can cash in something big soon to get my roll to around $45-$50k so that the inevitable hits of the bigger buyins don't have such a detrimental effect on my bankroll. I always feel that if I don't play the sunday majors I'm losing money in a way as they are typically really soft due to the amount of satellite qualifiers and the like.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be recovering from tonight session and going out for a meal in the evening to celebrate my sisters birthday with the family then trying to catch an earlyish night as I'm going banana boating Friday morning. Should be great fun! Friday afternoon I'm going to London to see some friends and go clubbing in the evening then back Saturday daytime, having a BBQ with some family who will be visiting then off into Bournemouth for my friend Marlows 20th. A busy few days! Hopefully then I'll be itching to play some poker so that I can put my A++++ game and win the Sunday Million! Would be nice...





The last couple of days I haven't put as much volume in as intended. I went out to the cinema last night to watch inglourious basterds. Such a good film. Quentin Tarantino has done it again. Really really good plot with lots of twists. As an Englishman, we rarely see films in the mainstream that have a good portion subtitled but you somehow do get used to reading some of the subtitled German/French whilst enjoying the cinematics. And such a good ending. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't watched it, but just do. Can't wait til it's out on DVD!

Anyway, I'm off to the gym to pump some weights before my session tonight. I'm currently ranked 26th this month in the country according to pocket fives and my $2.4k score in the $20rebuy hasn't come through yet so it looks like, including tonight, I'll get 3 more sessions in before the end of the month. It would be nice to get top 20, so that's a goal worth going for!

Gl at the felt all

Tuesday 25 August 2009

Getting Deep Runs in Some Tournies

Hey!

I'm continuing to have grind on the mind so getting in some pretty nice volume. Sunday was pretty bad to say the least. I started to build some nice stacks in most of the majors I played but ended up getting fucked all over the place only cashing in the Sunday Brawl for around $1k including bounties. Early on in the tournament I managed to knock out one of their team pro's, Luis Veldar 7th or something like that. I kind of cold decked him AA vs QQ so that was a nice start! And another t-shirt coming my way!

Full Tilt has been kind to me as of late. I played a number of tournaments there tonight most notably:



This $20rebuy. It was a really nice tournament as due to the 6-max nature people spew a lot harder than full ring and hence you are really deep stacked. For instance on the final table I came in as the short stack with 50bb's lol! So there was a lot of play. I made a big resqueeze with 66 and this guy who flatted behind made the goofiest call in history. The flop came akq and he donk led full pot, gg most of my stack after I have to fold lol!

I also got very close in the ladbrokes nightly (€25r) and final table bubbled it for about €250-€300ish. I was 6/12 at the time and made a bad squeeze which I regret doing it now. Mp opened 2.5x and got a caller who had been flatting a ton. I reshoved 30bb with A10 and Mp woke up with AK. Gg my stack. This might be results orientated sure, but I didn't have a read on MP guy. He could have been some sick nit that only played the nizzles, also A10 when it gets called is often in terrible shape, it would be better to do this with 910 than A10. You live and learn and hopefully spew less..

Somehow I also managed to cash in both late nightlies on Stars and Full Tilt which was nice, but no final tables here. Nevertheless it's a nice thing to cash in the most expensive buyins of the night!

So generally a good night. Probably due to the fact that one of my mates, Marlow, came round to play some tournies too and I seem to be more sensible and less spewy when a friend is here too. Prob some degen gambler inside me doesn't want the world to see me in my true spewfull form, I dno :). But literally as soon as he left, I busted about 4/6 tournaments I had up at the time lol! Might have to pay him to stay around longer next time. We did order kebabs for a late night snack which has to be +ev food. Although again, not sure I want to make a habit of that, as sitting on my ass for 10 hours+ a night and eating that isn't going to work out too well for my health! Gym tomorrow morning first priority I think ;).

Oh I also played that €10r sat on DTD to the £330 monthly deepstack and shipped the seat first time, so looks like I'm heading up to Nottingham next week! About time for a decent live score, so I'll keep you all updated!

Hope all is good! glgl

Sunday 23 August 2009

The Secret To Reaching Big Final Tables

Hey!

After being on a bit of a sour run as of late, I decided that the only way I am going to reach one of those beautiful final tables is if I really hardcore it and put in some good volume to try and even out the variance. So keeping to 6 tables, that is exactly what I did. Registering from 7pm to 2:30am the sessions are a lot longer (normally 12 hours) but it's paying off!

I've made some nice final tables the past couple of days including 4th in Stars $20 rebuy, 5th in full tilt $109/$80k gtd for just over $5k and some other smaller ones on euro sites!



I figure I might as well hardcore it now while I don't really have any commitments and the times I'm not seeing friends I can just grind online and build a healthy bankroll. Plus the fact I'm really into grinding it out at the moment and looking forward to my next session. I'm going on holiday in 2-3 weeks so wouldn't mind getting some good volume in there and then relaxing on a beach spending $$$ as a reward. Would be nice!

So I've just finished this final table. As opposed to the $20r I came 4th in two days a go I don't think I played as well in the final 3 tables. I was aggressive but chose the wrong spots and bled a lot in non-showdown pots. Almost every 3b was 4b and I see this as being an increasing trend at higher stakes. So I think I'll have to start making the necessary adjustments. 3b's still work super effective on the euro networks vs the right players though. I came in the final table as 8/9 so that was a nice result, but lost a 30bb pot in the end with a9 beat by q 10. Not sure why but isn't it always the case at these big final tables theres always some massive fish on a heater that can't physically miss a flop. Hehe oh well!

Sunday is going to be a big day. Hopefully I won't spend too much but after slowly losing money the previous 2 weeks every day I won't feel as pressured from the higher buyins on Sunday. Sleep time now, gl at the tables all!

Friday 21 August 2009

Feeling Like Helmouth!



Hey!

I've played quite a lot this week but nothing has really been going right at all! And that's probably an understatement. Not sure how many top 20 finishes I've had losing as a favourite, but I'm just lucky I don't have quite a short a temper as Hellmuth otherwise gg my laptop!

http://weaktight.com/1419456 This about sums up the week lol. With 24 left for chip leader. I mean christ, I'm not even sure you could even play his hand any worse than he did then. Gahh frustrationnnn! Guess that's what these MTT's are all about then ;)

I think I'll have to move down stakes a little due to this week not going quite as intended, play less $30r and $165 freezeouts outside of Sundays.

On a more positive note the weather has changed for the better the past couple of days which has meant lots of time spent chilling on the beach and messing about outside which has been really nice. Hope I come out of this mini downswong soon and FT something big!

Monday 17 August 2009

Tonight

Hey!

Not much success last night. I started the session later than I intended due to staying at my friends house and having a BBQ with their family which I felt would be pretty rude if I was excused early to go grind poker online lol! Don't think they would have quite understood despite it being Sunday! Fish imo.. ;)

So I registered from about 8pm-11pm for a shortish session with no big scores. Similarly to last Sunday I managed to get pretty deep in the $55/$200k gtd on stars but busted for about $250 before the money got serious as well as min-cashing in both the $109/$30k gtd and $30r on iPoker. I was pretty aggro on both near the bubble and managed to lose two huge flips on the bubble meaning I basically had to fold into the money with my 5bb stack and work from there. I got in the money on both but couldn't get my stack going again to reach the final table.

Nevertheless, tonight is the night though I think! Going to be playing the euro tournies (not ongame at the moment as I busted my roll there last night - woops) and waiting for some money from full tilt so I can redeposit again! I'll play the €55r on Boss and various other tournaments on iPoker, Boss and Ladbrokes. Hope I ft something, not had a deep finish in a while, although I guess my volume this month hasn't been too great anyway!

Will post updates later/tomorrow! GL All

Sunday 16 August 2009

Haggis, Neeps and Tats


Hey!

I've had a few days off since Tuesday when I got a flight up to (not-so-sunny) Edinburgh to visit family and go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. For those that don't know, the Fringe festival is this amazing event held every Summer in Edinburgh with literally thousands upon thousands of performances, shows and music to listen to whilst getting extremely pissed in the process.



The highlights for me have to be the Tao Japanese drummers. The show was unreal. Visually it was stunning and the music they were making was really nice, accompanied by flutes. I know the prospect of listening to some Asians bang on drums for an hour doesn't sound too appealing, but you have to trust me when I say that this show is on another level. The crowd was loving it throughout and there was a standing ovation at the end of their set. Really one to recommend here.

Other than that, I also saw several free and costly comedy acts including sketch shows, improvised comedy and some good old stand-up which was quite literally a barrel of laughs. (^o^) Other than the shows, a lot of time was spent in various pubs and restaurants throughout the town catching up with relatives and old family friends that I hadn't seen in a while. So that was certainly a nice break!

But after any good break, I'm now eager and pumped to play poker once again. That fire inside of me is fully burning and I can't wait to play the tournaments tonight. It's the end of the FTOPS series on Full Tilt and I would love to play the main event ($535) but considering that is way outside of my bankroll at the moment, I'm going to attempt to satellite into it.

Unfortunately, there has been a slight mix-up as my Mum seems to have kindly given my room away for guests getting the dates mixed up when I was coming back from Scotland, so I am in fact homeless for the next few days. That's not too good news if I want to grind it out online (or sleep for that matter). Luckily enough, a good friend, Chris, who is also a complete poker fanatic, has offered me a floor in his house so it should be a fun couple of days where I'll hopefully get a ton of volume in! I can't wait!

GL at the felt y'all!

Oh, and if you need cheering up and want a good laugh check this out (wouldn't recommend it if your French though!) Some of the responses are hilarious!

Monday 10 August 2009

Monday

Well last nights session didn't go too well unfortunately! But that can't be helped too much I guess. I made a few deep runs being top 100 from fields of over 1000, but unfortunately couldn't quite reach the final tables were all the big money is at. I cashed for over $1k thanks mainly to a deep run in the $55/$200k gtd on stars and the sunday million but other than that it was pretty uneventful. I feel that in some situations I was getting my money in a bit too light and quite possibly overestimating peoples ranges.

The TLB contest came to a slight anti-climax. P3rc4, rmthawk64 and mement_mori (all very very sick players) stole the show with p3rc4 seeming to not only final table but win a massive tournament almost every night of this week! Not bad for a last minute heater. Our team didn't do too badly, but some of the other teams had some very good players that had very sick results. I was surprised shaundeeb didn't dominate as much as he did last year, but in these 1k+ tournaments with super high variance you really do need to run good to get to that final table.

Anyway! Back on track. Another day another dollar.

Tonight I'll head back to the lower variance euro-land to get the grind back on and hopefully win me some money!

Here's the schedule I shall be playing tonight:

7:00pm: $108/$15k gtd (Ongame)
7:30pm: $22r/$19.5k gtd (Full Tilt)
7:30pm: €25r/€20k gtd (Prima)

8:00pm: €50r/€25k gtd (Boss)
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)
9:45pm: $33r/$20k gtd (iPoker)

10:00pm: €10r/€7.5k gtd (Boss)
10:00pm: €20r/€10k gtd (Prima)
10:25pm: $55/$7.5k gtd (iPoker)

11:00pm: €55/€3.5k gtd (Boss)
11:00pm: $55/$8k gtd (OnGame)
11:00pm: €22r/€7.5k gtd (Prima)

I'll play this for a little while and see how I find it. I am tempted to put in the $163 nightly on full tilt in the mix as well as the $129 which both have a bit of dead money, but are still very tough tournaments. I think the $163 early nightly with $50k gtd is a nice tournament with a great prize pool, but for the meanwhile until my bankroll grows a little larger I'm going to give it a miss. The play standard is very high on that and I think I can find value elsewhere. Similarly, although I did final table the $129 on full tilt last week, the standard of play is very high with a good % of the players being regulars meaning less people spewing off chips. I may chop and change and add them in at a later date, but at the moment I think this is enough tournaments to get by on quite happily.

I'll also be playing one of the stars extreme WCOOP satellite later on to see if I can ship myself another seat for the tournament series in September. I don't know if I mentioned it at an earlier stage, but I did manage to win a $1k seat so obviously that tournament is going to be absolutely huge, and hope I run good in it in September!

From a friends recommendation I've added in the €55r on boss. Using a 5-unit buyin (€250 average) I am still under-rolled but my average buyin is well under 0.5% of my bankroll and so once a night shouldn't put too much strain on my funds.



In non-poker news, I have just finished reading a book called "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga. It is such an amazing read and I'de really recommend it. Without ruining the story, it's about an Indian boy growing up in rural India into a poor family and his constant struggle to get out of poverty and break the cycle. It's a really well written book, really insightful and some great humour mixed in. Probably the best book I've read.

I also heard this song the other day on youtube as recommended by a friend. If hip hops your thing, check this out:




Hope all is good! Ciao!

Sunday 9 August 2009

The Final Slog

Hey!

Tonight is the last night of the 2 week TLB contest. Despite not really playing for the first week, I'm lucky to have had quite an active time and from what I gather we are only 2000 points behind the leaders which isn't too much at all.

The way the contest works is that playing on full tilt and pokerstars, whenever you go deep in a tournament, you get given "tournament leaderboard points". The greater the number of runners and the higher the buyin the more points you are likely to get. You can work out the points here as well as the fact that pokerstars emails you the points you get when you cash every night. I've had some mixed results, but a few good cashed and 2 noteworthy final tables to contribute to my teams score.

So tonight is the final push, if our team of 5 grinders, (consisting of myself, Kennl, Everton Yorkie, Spoonfox, Swede554, Mc4chess and DeuceSeven) run good we can easily nail the series and win lots of $ in the side bets involved. Let's do this!

So here is my schedule for tonight:

5:45pm: $215/$750k gtd (Sunday Warmup)
6:00pm: $22/$5k gtd
6:00pm: $109/$40k gtd
6:00pm: $75/$18.5k gtd
7:00pm: $27/$320 satellite
7:00pm: $256/$750k gtd (FTOPs Event 8)
7:00pm: $10/$30k gtd
7:15pm: $3r/$50k gtd
7:15pm: $22r/$20k gtd
7:30pm: $22r/$530 satellite
8:00pm: $150/$50k gtd
8:00pm: $55/$80k gtd
8:30pm: $11/$250k gtd (Sunday 1/4 million)
8:30pm: $22r/$19.5k gtd
9:00pm: $82/$530 satellite
9:00pm: $75/$22.5k gtd
9:00pm: $11r/$60k gtd
9:20pm: $22/$200k gtd (Double Deuce)
9:30pm: $33r/$19.5k gtd
9:30pm: $250/$1,500,000 gtd (Sunday Million)
10:00pm: $55/$75k gtd
11:00pm: $322/$1.5million gtd (FTOPS event 10)
11:00pm: $5r/$40k gtd
11:15pm: $33r/$8k gtd
12:00pm: $75/$40k gtd
12:00pm: $109/$80k gtd
12:15pm: $11r/$10k gtd
12:30pm: $20r/$12.5k gtd


Total Buy-ins come to around $2.6k. FML lol! Can I use my one-time here? I'll update later in a new blog entry with how I do and if I make any deep runs!

GL everyone.

Friday 7 August 2009

Drunk Fish on a Heater



Well I don't know what else he could be!

http://weaktight.com/1367028

8/467 in $129/$30k gtd on full tilt :( I guess you can't win them all. Shame that pot was for chip lead too which would have almost guaranteed me a top 3-4 finish (all over $5k). Gahh donkaments!


edit: Just checked and from 1/7 he came 7th lol. Sort of justice I guess :p

And if you're wondering how I got to the final table, I basically had these two songs on repeat most of the night. They're both sick!





Mini Brag:

Hi f3nix35,

Congratulations on busting Eddy Scharf in the following tournament:

$30,000 KO Guarantee (101232702)

Your Full Tilt Poker account has been credited with a bounty prize of $120.00.

In addition to your bounty prize money, you've also earned a T-shirt to commemorate your accomplishment. You'll receive a second email that will allow you to claim this shirt and confirm your shipping details.

Remember, Full Tilt Poker offers a bounty for busting any red pro playing in any scheduled real-money tournament with 30 players or more. You can collect a bounty matching the tournament buy-in (not including tournament fee) up to $200.

We're happy to have you playing at Full Tilt Poker - best of luck at the tables!

Sincerely,

Full Tilt Poker

I'm sure I can pick up all the ladies with that t-shirt on :)

GL at the tables all!

Wednesday 5 August 2009

The late shift

Hey!

After my recent bankroll boost, I'm going to be starting to take a few more shots at larger online tournaments. And today will be the start. I'll be playing the $216/$1million gtd FTOPS event 1. For those not in the know, FTOPS is the tournament series held on Full Tilt Poker which boasts a series of high buy-ins and a bunch of crazy guarantees. If there is a time to run good online, it is during this festival or the pokerstars equivalent.

At the moment I'm still slightly under-rolled for $200 games, so will probably try to satellite in on the cheap but probably buy-in anyway and for tournaments with higher buy-ins like $500 main event I'll try my best to win a satellite in.

Last night I was back on the grind and enjoying it again. The mojo may be back :). Although I didn't have much success, apart from going on a heater in a $55 hyper turbo coming 40/803 :P it was still good fun. These hyper-turbos are always fun at the end of the sessions. I normally register from 7pm-11pm and so the full tilt $59 hyper-turbo starts at 11:40 is pretty nice finish as my tables are by now decreasing at a rapid rate. You get 300 chips with a 3 minute clock and the blinds starting at 15/30. So as you can imagine it's a pretty good end to the night just shoving every hand and sucking out. That coupled with the $10 knock-out bounty and its happy days alround. Well, I managed to go on a pretty sick heater to start with and managed to turn my 300 chips into over 10,000! But then variance caught up with me resulting in me losing 4/4 flips in the money. I can't complain, flipping is the name of the game!

So today, I'm heading to the gym with some mates to do play some squash, go for a swim probably come back play some ps3 then prepare myself for tonight. Bring it on!

Monday 3 August 2009

Emotional Rollercoaster -$15k day!

Hey!

Not been blogging a lot lately. I finalised with my ex that we aren't ever going to be getting back together but will most likely stay really good friends. But I don't know how that will be. I mean can you really go from sleeping with someone every night for over a year and having lots of fun in the bedroom to just keeping it non-sexual without awkwardness? I've had a few girlfriends in the past and unfortunately I'm not really in contact with a lot of them now despite being v close to them at the time. Then again I don't think I've ever really loved anyone other than my most recent Ex. But times do change...

..So anyway I was pretty depressed after the break-up over the past couple of weeks which has resulted in me playing pretty terrible poker to say the least. What comes with terrible poker comes downswings and the good start to July ended up on a pretty big low after my massive month of June. I also started questioning a lot of things like if I really do want to play poker a lot in the future and what I should put my priorities at. I mean, it does seem that playing poker at home especially is very unsocial. You don't really get to meet new people and I'm not really a massive fan of meeting up with drunk girls in clubs anyway no matter how easy they are. It's always been a bit of a turn-off when she's vomiting whilst giving head I guess ;) But I guess that depends. As at the moment I'm staying in my parents house non-term time which would be very different than staying in a grind house with a few other mates. The seeing girls is still a major issue though. Not sure how many online MTTers are meeting many girls and in what sort of situations if they are that they are meeting them.

Anyway, to put my mind off my emo relationship problems, I went to sonosphere to bash some goths and emos up to some heavy metal \o/ Not going to lie, but I've never seen such a freak fest but it was such an awesome day. We really went to see Linkin Park who were headlining but I was most impressed with Skindred and Bullet for My Valentine. Both are these are pretty heavy and the crowds were mental. Obviously me and my mates after a few ciders and beers headed straight to the front and got involved straight away in the mosh pit. And it was mental, there must have been over 100 people moshing at some points. We did everything, including circle of death (everyone runs around pushing in a massive circle then when the music gets heavy bundle into the middle and just go mental - no idea why they allow this, one person falls over and so do the 20 behind them - great fun nonetheless!). Another one of my favourites is when the bands ordered the crowd to divide, then as the music builds up and goes crazy everyone charges towards each other. One of my mates got completely crushed in the middle it was so good. I can guarantee some of my ancestors were viking barbarians :). Somehow due to me being nocturnal I only managed to get to sleep at 5:30am and having to leave at 7am, so after the Skindreds mayhem I fell asleep with a pint of cider on the grass to some heavy metal band for an hour. Kept me

So after coming home at 3am totally battered and bruised, covered in sweat (most probably not mine) I had the first bath I probably have had in over a year then fell into some sort of coma for 14 hours recovering. I also woke up discovering my phone had literally been crushed. Probably when I was being crushed at the bottom of a pile of people some time during the previous day so had little to know contact to people on the outside other than the internet. Meh it was worth it, and probably good so I don't think about texting my EX lol.

Well anyway I played a few games, watched Waynes World (pretty funny) then thought I'll play a small session on stars/full tilt as I've got to help out for this bloody tournament leaderboard I paid $130 to enter and have yet to even register a score. I didn't register for anything above $75, leaving the Sunday Million and other tournies as I still wasn't feeling too pumped about playing. Well I guess in a way of cheering me up I managed to chop the $75/$22.5k gtd on full tilt for $15k!

That's right $15k! This smashed my previous best score by like 4 times and my first 5 figure day! So happy :D The tournament was really pretty tough as was 4 handed play featuring Adam Junglen and Rivermanl (whatariver1 on full tilt - rank 2 in UK and $25/$50 player). I kept up the aggression and managed to win the right flips at the right times. I came back from 500k to 1,500k in headsup but there was $9k on the line and I didn't want to flip for that much besides the fact my opponent was a winning high stake reg when I OPR'd him. So I was quite happy to do a deal.



So I guess this could be the motivation needed to get me grinding away online again! Maybe I can get another couple of scores so that $130 I spent in the TLB contest isn't wasted. After all the whole reason for the TLB is to get motivation to grind and thats the last thing I've been doing the past week!

GL at the felt all