A pretty solid week

I put in good volume and with the help of a nice little bink on the DTD software of €800, I'm +$2500 on the week. I think I flat out won 3-4 tournaments this week which is really nice. I'm being pretty nitty on the bankroll front but might take some more shots at $10r and $50 freezes mid-week if I'm running well. They're still really soft and gives me the chance to bink something huge.

I've kind of gone off the 90 mans at the moment. I seem to still doing alright with them, but at the moment I'm just enjoying playing the euro and stars/ftp tournaments much more. It feels much less like a grind too.

So yes, I had a lovely little bink online at DTD, and would appreciate some live binking too. This weekend is the DTD £50/£40k gtd. It's already a sell-out event and will be the biggest tournament in England. I'm really happy for the club on its achievement as it really is a nice little joint and I hope it lasts on through the ages particularly during this economic recession.

Other than that this week I've spent watching "The Social Network" which I'd highly recommend, eating at a few nice meals and chilling with some old uni friends at the weekend. I'm pretty happy with the grind at the moment and I'm looking forward to next week where hopefully I have another profitable week and can move up stakes in November.

Check out the pad

Hey!

I've finally moved in and settled down. I had to take a wee chunk out of my roll for some home furnishing but I'm really happy now with how the flat is looking. I just love it here!

The view from my balcony looking over Nottingham:


The poker-set up. It's working really well so far. I'm 9-tabling on the 30inch monitor and use my 20inch monitor for all the poker clients, poker lobbys, MSN windows, HEM and music etc.


The kitchen-area. So much easier having a fridge a couple of meters from my computer so I can dash over, heat something up, grab a drink and still not miss a hand!


The living area. I've now moved the glass table to the corner and put my new Panasonic Viera TV on it with PS3 underneath. It's kind of annoying it's directly behind my PC so I can't watch and play at the same time. But I think that's probably for the best!


The Bedroom. Nuff said.


I'm having a couple of mates stay over this weekend to chill, so it might not look as clean and tidy as it does in these photos in a few days time!

As far as the poker is going. I've had a good couple of weeks since I've been grinding in the flat including winning 2 tournaments!

$20/$4k gtd 6max on OnGame


$30 6-max on OnGame


Long may the good times continue!

Live pro'ing it up for the rest of the week...or am I? (cliffs at btm)

Yo yo,

I'm probably getting scammed by this new ISP I've decided to go with but after moving into my new flat (which I'm loving and photos will come when I can blog from my computer once again!) I am yet again without Internet. Urgggh such a pain! It's getting activated on the following Thursday apparently. I asked if they could do anything to speed the process up as really I need the Internet to make my money. Well I could pay £160 to get it done by Monday but then I'd still miss all the weekend action so decided to just wait it out a few more days.

To keep myself busy inbetween chilling with friends and playing the new Starcraft 2 (note to self: do not get addicted!) I shall be making frequent visits to my local card room dusk til dawn to hopefully grind out some form of wage for the week. I've been very fortunate in not having a losing week since I've been back in Nottingham so far, but this could well be
my first losing week coming up here.

I'm not being too pessimistic just realistic really. Live you just can't get the volume in that you need and also the rake live is pretty absurd! I mean i played today in a £1/£2 Holdem game for a while and it was 10% rake up to £10 per pot. Dtd were even advertising their live £25 deepstack which has a further £7 in rake. It's not really dusk til dawns fault though obviously. It costs a hell of a lot to fund the place and it is a nice and professional gambling environment so I'm happy to support them and very grateful that the club is situated so close to my flat!

Regardless, this weekend I'm going to play the £200 deepstack on Saturday and the £100 deepstack on Sunday. Aa far as cash games go after I'm really undecided. I don't really enjoy playing live cash that much to be honest and even if I assume I crush full ring live for like 5-10bb/100 which I probably don't anyway (loltourny donk) after the rake is taken out my hourly would still be really terrible. Especially as you get like 25 hands in an hour at live cash. grinding £2.50-£5.00 an hour with a ton of variance involved doesn't really sound that great at all.

But then, I am at heart a grinder and really feel like I can't only play 2 tourns this weekend lol! I mean, think what ivey would do!

An alternate would be to play some dealers choice mixed games like I played tonight which are a lot of fun, but I'm pretty sure that game can't be beaten in the long run particularly at £2/£2. The most common games in rotation are 6 card PLO hi/lo, 6 card PLO, super stud and paduki. The reason I say that I don't think they can be signficantly beat is because a lot of the pots end up being split which still have 10% rake up to £8 and the hands/hour is ridiculously low due to everyone playing every hand. And let's be honest PLO is swingy enough as it is without making it full ring and adding an extra 2 cards on top ;-) I think part of the issue is you could probably crush the game but it would take years to ever get the kind of volume in to show any signs of sustainable profit just because the variance in these games is so ridiculous.

Saying all this, I still really enjoy the mixed games. But I think the wisest thing to do would be to treat it as a pure gamble and play it recreationally occasionally when I have a much bIgger bankroll so that dropping 5 buyins is like a splash in the ocean.

Damnit, I ranted on too long and I'm on my iPhone so it's super hard to edit. So here are cliffnotes for the 90% of readers that don't fancy committing an afternoon slogging through this post:

clifffnotes:
-Internet down so playing live this weekend
-live cash is pretty boring and probably close to unprofitable for me at my stakes
-live mixed games are fun but are also one hellova gamble and probably unprofitable for me
-might just play the £100 and £200 deepstacks only and be a massive slacker as a result

Expansion Potential...

After that sick little heater on Monday things haven't got as well for the rest of the week. I got deep in a few tournaments but ended up being the final table bubble-boy a little more than I'd have liked particularly in bigger tournaments. Can't complain though, still up $1800 on the week (thanks really to Monday) whilst down on the month $1770. Woops!

That's probably due to this Sunday just being a complete nob to me and not letting me win a showdown in anything of importance. I played the $500 GSOP and unfortunately lost KK v AA for a bunch of chips...and...

...wait, didn't I promise you all long back I wouldn't talk about beats on this blog?

Well onwards and upwards then...

Next week is quite exciting for me. For the past few weeks although I've had my property and kind of moved in. I've left my computer at my girlfriends to grind with. Which is fine as we practically live together anyway and she's cool with the poker. But tomorrow BT are finally coming round to connect the line and I'm being hooked up with fast.co.uk after that so I'll be grinding there from then on. I'll post some pictures of the place when I'm all settled in next week hopefully. It should be a pretty sick grind-pad.

As far as poker is concerned, I think I'll keep playing the Euro sites mainly but drop €50 freezeouts and €10r's from the schedule for the forthcoming week before I obliterate my roll any further. I'll keep in $10r and $50 freezes though. I'm also debating expanding into other sites in the future, most notably putting money on:

-party poker
-888
-Absolute Poker
-Carbon Poker
-Everest Poker

I think I'll move onto those platforms when I get the roll over $20k though. That will allow me to play a good selection of $50+ tournaments throughout the afternoon/night and provide a better selection. Where I am at the moment though there are plenty of buyins for my range, so I'm in no rush to find greener pastures to shit all over.

Anyway, a little down because of bricking so hard tonight. But then to put it into perspective and not make me feel so bad this is what I just read on twitter from Amak316, a top tournament pro, who was just playing EPT London £20,000 high-roller:

amak316 Amit Makhija
"I cant imagine feeling any worse than I do now. 9th in the highroller, lost a pot for a ~3rd place stack on the exact bubble as a huge fav."

amak316 Amit Makhija
"just a $73,000 bubble no big deal, at least I can continue my 2 year streak of losing every pot Ive played worth more than 6 figs in equity."

Now that must suck!

For anyone else having an absolutely terrible Sunday and needs some cheering up, check this out. I first saw it on Red Square Poker's blog which is a good read in itself. But here is the epic video not to be missed:



Also on the far horizon for all the UK players, Pokerstars will be having a "UK and Ireland Championship of Online Poker" exclusively online to UK residents. That will be pretty sick I imagine and probably quite soft.

UK & IRELAND CHAMPIONSHIP OF ONLINE POKER
11 Events from December 5-12
$512,500 guaranteed prize pool
EXCLUSIVELY FOR PLAYERS IN: United Kingdom, Ireland & Isle Of Man.