March Review, WSOP and onto April!

Hey!

I think it's best to start of by saying March has been very kind to me. This was one of the big months before Vegas where I can really get my head down and grind, especially whilst the weather outside remains relatively poor and everyone else seems busy with University etc. So that's what I did! I don't keep track exactly how many days I did but it was a fair few which resulted in me buying into around $47k worth of tournaments this month smashing my $40k target I set at the start of the month. I also managed a small cash in the UKIPT Manchester making me go 1 for 2 in live tournament cashes on the month. Woo Woo!

So as you can see I ran pretty hot this month which is always really nice and just what's needed pre-Vegas. Now I just need to keep this run going for a while longer!

You may notice a pretty significant blip in the graph at the end of the month. Well I managed to luckbox a main event package last night in a $500 sat! I'm pretty much over the moon with happiness at the moment. I tried really hard to sat in last year whilst spunking off around $5k in sats with no luck. Literally since I first started playing home-games with friends for £2 I've really wanted to play in the main event. I know it's pretty cliche and a fishy attitude but words can't describe how excited I am for Vegas now!

One issue which is kind of in the back of my mind is that I qualified through AP (boo, hiss!). I don't regularly play on the site and I guess from an ethical standpoint I probably shouldn't at all based on their history. Similarly I haven't really given a lot of thought in depth to how I would feel representing the site if I did get a deep run in the main event. The thing with satellites on AP, Stars and FTP is that due to some legal reason they can't actually buy you into the tournament. Instead they credit your account with the money expecting you to go a long and play the tournament. As added incentive to actually get the punters to come down to the main event and play the give a $1k bonus for showing up, cash in hand. Then they give $1k per day and a $10k bonus if you reach the money. Which is pretty damn sick all things considered. Now you've got a soft $10k tournament with a mincash effectively of ~$30,000. This is a pretty similar deal on AP and FTP at the moment, and I guess Stars will join the crew too or maybe even offer something better.

On the other hand the European sites are starting to offer satellites. But sites like 888 and party poker are must-play seats without any extra monetary incentives for turning up or cashing. Similarly these packages are about $3k-$4k more including hotels and random parties (lol nice markup guys) making them even less attractive. I mean I think the satelittes on party for instance will be softer, and there's a fairly good chance if I grind the sats hard I could win another seat via Party and then keep my $12k from AP as cash but the added incentive of playing with them is a lot.

I think what I'll probably end up doing is try to grind the WSOP sats a fair bit as they do seem to be fairly soft and try to also qualify on Full Tilt or Stars (whenever they eventually run them) and go from there.

Anyway, enough of that jibber-jabber. So I've noted a pretty mammoth schedule for Vegas which I expect I'll sell action to in the next couple of months. I'm really not sure how many 'shots' I should take this Summer with my own money. A good part of me wants to do bi-weekly packages whereby I'd put up a package for the first 2 weeks I'm there. Then a separate package for the next two weeks etc.  This would then allow me to alter the % of action that I sell as my bankroll fluctuates. I mean say for instance I had a really lucky start and managed to bink pretty early but then was tied into still selling 50% for say the main event 6 weeks later, that would suck a little. I'll have a good think about it. I'll also blog about my schedule before I post it incase any readers want to buy a % or two for a bit of a sweat this Summer. It should be fun :)

I just googled "April" and this pic came up which I thought was pretty funny so thought I'd add it!

Anyway, onto April. A fresh month and a fresh start to bink some tournaments. I won't be putting as much volume in online this month as I have the previous two months. After the SCOOP draws to a close there isn't a whole lot more happening online-wise other than FTOPs which I've pretty much given up on after Full Tilts persistance in trying to make their fields as tough and annoying as possible by adding all the crap like multi-entry, rush and cashout. Whatever happened to good old fashioned 9 man NLH tourns eh!? 

So instead I'll be turning a lot of my focus to the live arena this month. Partly to have a break from the computer and partly as a bit of practice for Vegas. I'm increasingly becoming more eager to play live tournaments these days and feel much more confident playing them. Yes, they are a grind, but with the right mindset they can also be a lot of fun. Plus the social side surrounding the live poker environment is always fun as I'm starting to get to know more and more players on the scene.

So first off this weekend I'll be playing the DTD £300 monthly deepstack, followed by the $3000 GSOP Seville in Spain. Then hopefully the Irish Open (satellite luckboxing dependent) followed finally by GUKPT Walsal. It looks to be a busy month ahead. I'll also supplement the live grind with some online play and hope to get around $30,000 in tournament entries online this month. It should be a lot of fun.

Best of luck to everyone in April!

Cliff Notes:
-Ran hot this month
-Binked a WSOP package!
-Planning on playing a lot more live in April

A pretty decent week with a few small binks

Progress on the bankroll front!

I've started adding in the OnGame $50r and having success with it already cashing twice this week. I'm yet to get a final table on it despite the two deep runs but I hope it's only just round the corner. My best score of the week came in a second place in a €30 rebuy for €3.3k. I also managed to win the following 4 tournaments:

So a really good week :). I played pretty much every day and put in a lot of work outside of poker in the gym, eating healthily and working on my game so I feel pretty pleased with the progress.

This Sunday was probably my biggest Sunday ever. My rolls hovering about $40k at the moment so I'm taking shots at the majors on my own. Today the total buy-ins were just over $5k in the end. GULP. I lost a bit of money on the day but it was much closer thanks to a proper Sunday saver binking 4th in a $16 hyper for just over $2k :)

I didn't really have any deep runs in majors this week other than a 19th in a €150/€35k gtd and a 14th in iPoker $109/$25k gtd. I did though manage to FT a small €50r but crashed out in 4th. Still not bad!

Anyway, it's another no-lifer week of grinding coming up. Should be pretty fun as I'm really enjoying playing a higher stake schedule these days due to my increased roll. There is some serious money on the tables every night and to tell you the truth, it's quite exciting! This coming weekend I'll be playing the monthly DTD £330 deepstack and looking for a deep run. It would be nice to finally cash in that tournament anyway!

Until later, gl guys!

Success at the UKIPT!

Hey!

I finally managed to cash in a live tournament after again another very dry stint! I managed to get 27th in the 4-day UKIPT Manchester tournament making a solid deep-run into the third day before losing my only flip of the whole tournament A8s beaten by the deuces. A bit anti-climatic, but with £1450 in my pocket from the £500 buy-in and a bucket-load of confidence I now cannot actually wait for Vegas.

In fact, I'm so stoked with this deep run I've actually planned a few other live tournaments that I'd like to play prior to my Vegas trip. So so stoked I've even pretty much planned my entire live schedule over Vegas. It will include lot's of $300 and $500 venetian NLHE tournaments, a few WSOP shots at their $1ks and $1.5ks and some random $200 8-game comps and 6-max omaha hi/lo at binions/golden nugget just for fun. This could very well be an expensive Summer coming up.

The OnGame GSOP is now over. I didn't do too great in the series cashing in just one of the $200 freezeouts and the $100r. Then again, due to playing in Manchester I didn't manage to get too much volume in nearer the end of the series. I almost played the $500/$300k gtd whilst staying in Manchester borrowing a friend, Neil's, laptop for the evening. Thank god someone in the hotel had already registered for it as Neil's laptop turned out to be the biggest pile of shit ever and would have not had a chance trying to load the stodgy ongame software. In fact it couldn't even handle full tilt. Somehow I managed to final table the $50 rush turbo thingy they have on Sundays with $7k up top. Neil's laptop obv crashed again when I was 5/7 and after 10 minutes trying to reboot the damn thing I realised I had blinded out. In 4th place though! No idea what the others guys at the final table must have been doing but it had to involve some epic ICM-spew given I was sat out! To be honest, I'm not sure if that's even a beat or a brag.

Other than that I've won a small €50 turbo this week for €1.1k and had a bunch of 2nd-5ths which has got to be a good thing! I mean it would have been nicer to close, especially on Sunday when the top prizes are often higher, but I cannot complain. I just ticked off another winning Sunday coming 4th in the 888.com $75 freezeout for $3.3k. From last year pretty much not having a single winning Sunday, this year is starting out pretty damn well in terms of Sunday performance. Still no huge Sunday bink but it has to only be a matter of time!

Onto this coming week. Well after playing an absurd amount of weekend poker I pretty much slept in all of Monday and just chilling with friends today and tonight. I'll be grinding my pants off for the rest of the week as my online volume this month has slacked a bit and I'm thus far pretty behind on my projected monthly buyins. Also my fitness/diet has sucked since Manchester so definitely getting back on that hard for the rest of the week.

GL at the tables everyone, I'll update with any big scores that I get or deep runs after next Sundays grind!

Crazy Sunday Grinding and a Small Brag!

Hey,

I have just finished quite possibly my longest ever session of online poker before. I started registering tournaments at 1pm and finished registering at 1:30am with some turbos eventually playing my last hand at around 4am. To be honest, I have no idea how I'm even remotely capable of writing this message as I feel truly knackered. But that's some dedication to the blog isn't it!

Anyway, I am extremely happy as I have now reached the 6-figure club on Sharkscope! I don't follow the statistics too religiously as they tend to be a little inaccurate and have missed out a lot of the tournaments I used to play back in the day on networks like crypto etc. But after today Sharkscope officially has me up over $100k lifetime on my main sites :D

Back to the results of tonight. Well, it was quite a fun night in the end. I got deep in quite a few tournaments including a 2nd in a $15 hyper-turbo on Full Tilt for $2.6k, 4th in a $100 6max turbo for $2k and 3rd in the Everest $100/$50k gtd for $5.3k. Coincidently I also managed to final table this a few weeks ago coming in 3rd then as well. I think I need lessons on closing tbh..

Anyhow, profitable Sundays are always nice and a bit of a rarity so I'm enjoying every moment.

This past weekend I played the dtd £300 deepstack which was rather uneventful and another live tournament to add to the ever-growing list of live-bricks. It will come one day, it will come one day, it will come one day.... ;)

Maybe even next weekend in fact? I managed to blag myself a seat to the UKIPT Manchester in one of those gamble-fest £5 3x-turbo rebuys on Stars which I always seem to end up in for like £60 in. Anyway I got the seat and after the banter at the last stop of the UKIPT in Nottingham I'm pretty much looking forward to the social side as much as the event itself. There's something about the UKIPT I can't put my fingers on. It just seems to generate some hype and I just generally enjoy and look forward to the buzz surrounding the event.

Anyway, I'm extremely tired now and hope some of the above is remotely readable. GL at the tables guys..

February Review, Onto March!

Hey!

After a slow start, February turned out to be a great month for me. I didn't actually bink any tournaments but got short-handed in a few including a 3rd in the Everest $100/$50k gtd on Sunday for $5k and a 4th in a stars €100/€40k gtd for €3.8k too. Both definitely helped to boost the roll.

Onto this month and a lot could happen!

The OnGame GSOP series has just started and I plan on putting in a pretty much full schedule on this in all of the NLH games. So far there's been a $200, $150 and $100r. Being the luckbox that I am I managed a solid deep run in the $100r cashing for around $1k. Let's hope it's not my last deep run of the series!

Mini-FTOPs is making an appearance starting next week. I can never expect much with these mahhoooosive fields but I don't mind playing the big-field low-buyins especially some of the mixed game tournaments that are really soft and a lot of fun. Who knows, I may even go on a sick run and have my own little silver FTP jersey this time next month.

And after that the Pokerstars SCOOP (Spring Cup Of Online Poker) will be heading our way.

A lot going on online. Other than possibly UKIPT Manchester and DTD £300 deepstack which I'm umming and arring about at the moment I don't think I'll be playing any live this month. What I will be doing though is putting a ton of volume in online. I plan to keep playing the stakes I'm playing as I seem to be doing pretty well at them at the moment and aim for around $40,000 worth of MTT buyins this month. It's a tough task but I'd like to give it a go. What I won't be doing is what I did at the start of this month and start playing too many tables which resulted in me making suboptimal decisions. The results are pretty evidential in the graph above I do believe.

So anyway, that's my plan for March. It won't be the most exciting month of the year, but it has the potential to be a biggy.

GL folks..

A bad start to 2011 turned great. + UKIPT fun

Hey!

It's been a swongy start to the year so far. Pretty much coming back from India what with expenses from my trip and then seemingly forgetting how to win at MTTs I hit a rather harsh $7k drop to my bankroll forcing me to move down stakes. This resulted in me taking a lot more of my spare time number-crunching and going over hands/watching training videos to get me back into my winning ways. It was kind of sick in fact, I managed to final table bubble about 8 $100fo's/big field tournaments in the space of a week whilst upping my volume and without making a single final table.

Luckily things seem to have taken a turn for the better and I'm running hawwwwwt again! I managed to take down the OnGame $20rebuy for $3.5k, €50 6max for €1.4k, 3rd in a big $100 freezeout for $5.7k and blagged a seat in the GSOP final securing myself a $5k package! All in the space of 3 days.

MTTs can be the cruelest most soul-destroying things at times, but when you go on these little runs, it is honestly getting up there with the best feelings in the world. MBN right?

So since being back from India I've literally spent every minute I'm not with my girlfriend and friends thinking of poker and grinding my socks off. I'm still so focused on getting a big enough roll for Vegas so that I can take a few shots at the series and grind some Venetian tournaments.

Last weekend was UKIPT Nottingham. Living in Nottingham and having a load of superstar Online kids coming to town I felt it was my duty to put some of my mates up. So I had Michael "Ledders11" Leedham, Chud "Rje" Ellis and Ant "Anupreturns" Gaughan staying over at my place from Thursday through Sunday night. Without trying to sound gay, it was a lot of fun.

On the first night, a large get-together was organised with various degens travelling from around Europe to play the UKIPT Nottingham the following few days. We met at a curry house in Nottingham and then proceded to hit the town going all out with tripple-shots and skittlebombs. Whatever the hell they are. By the way, I think everyone has to thank Chud for not only recommending the bar "BZR" that we went to, but also kindly paying for everyones meal at the curryhouse. Learn to run better at credit card roulette next time mate ;)

I didn't last too long in the tournament getting my stack in with Js9s on a KxQsTs board but running into a loose aggressive young players AJ which sent me home rather earlier than I expected. I didn't even make the dinner break! I also had % of a few other people there but everyone pretty much failed and no-one who I had a % of even made day-2. Them internet kids pfftt...over-rated I tells ya!

Fortunately, Tim "BakinCookies" Bettingen (pictured far left next to me) managed to final table the tournament coming in 4th I do believe. So well done to him.

I was really impressed with the tournament on the whole and although I said I didn't want to play much live before Vegas the atmosphere and build-up to this tournament has actually got me really excited for my next trip to the live-arena. Just no live-cash then I should be fine.

But yes, UKIPT Nottingham was pretty incredible. For one, first prize rocketed above £100,000 with over 1000 people stumping up the £500 to play with alternatives who apparently couldn't get seated. Let's make this clear now, this tournament was held at Dusk Til Dawn, Europe's largest poker room over a 2 day period. And every side event and the main event fully sold out. Poker is heading places in England. It's exciting.

So I'm now pretty excited about my next big live tournament. Perhaps it will be a DTD£300 deepstack if I manage to satellite my way in or it could be the €3000 GSOP main event held in Seville, Spain sometime in Mid-August. The side event structure looks pretty good there too so hopefully it will be a nice little break. Who knows, by April south Spain may even have a little sunshine so that's definately something to look forward to in these bleak February days in England!

Other than that, I've booked my flights to Vegas. I'll be going over for the full series again flying out on the 3rd June and returning to England on the 17th July hopefully a significantly richer man. If not, I'm sure I'll have had an amazing time regardless!

I've got a lot of grinding to be getting back on with now, but until then, good luck at the tables guys!

India, 2011 and Future Plans

Hey!

For those unaware, I have recently returned from an extended 5 week holiday in India. The trip was amazing, and it was really nice to zone-out from poker and be immersed in a completely different culture and lifestyle. It definitely helps to put everything into perspective at any rate. Although I won't detail too much about the trip, I'll add some photos at the end of the post for those interested.

So now my new year has finally started. After a few withdrawals and a bad first Sunday back online, my roll is floating just above $20k at the moment. This is plenty for my schedule at the moment which is focusing primarily on midstake euro comps up to $100 freezeout. I'm really putting in a driving effort to have $10k worth of buyins a week online and maintaining a 50% roi. Although I am finding it increasingly difficult given my current bankroll to get in $2000 worth of buyins per night.

I'm kind of at a cross-junction with this. On the one hand you get the sickos like Mement_Mori which have $10k+ buyins on any particular day and can mass multi-table (like 30 tables+) at once with a relatively high average buy-in. This is obviously brilliant as he gets in amazing volume and seems to consistently do very well. However, I simply don't think I'm capable of playing that many tables profitably. I much prefer having a mix between 6-9 and really focusing on every decision I make trying to decipher, given the information available, the best play. I just feel that if I start upping the table numbers any more, I'll go further into auto-pilot mode and my ROI will drop. I'm sure I'll inevitably tighten up a bit which is also never a good thing in MTTs...

So I think I should start putting in some longer sessions to try and reach this $2k buyin per day. I'll try a 4pm-midnight registering time period and see how that suits me for a while.

In terms of live tournaments, to be honest I'm pretty fed up with them. It's probably because other than a UKIPT score a year back I've really not ever had a really deep run in the money of a big event. I kind of feel like although the buyins are higher yet the standard of play is lower, they are extremely time-consuming especially considering opportunity cost of playing online at the same time, you have to factor in a lot of expenses (travel, accommodation, food), and they aren't that great especially when you seem to get semi-deep but miss the money in every comp you play :p

So I think I might just stay local in Nottingham for the first part of the year especially up until Vegas and really limit the amount I play live. Then when I hit Vegas in the Summer, I'll be dying for some live action and really get my A-game back on and hopefully win big money!

Until then, I'll just enjoy the online grind and really try to get in decent volume and hope that the poker gods bless me by pushing a little run good this way too. Only a few months until Vegas now and I'd love to have a solid bankroll for when I go over there...