It's the New Year!!!

Happy New Year etc as we go into 2012!

2011 was my best year ever in many ways. I made the most money ever and had a lot of fun meeting some great new people, many of whom I'm sure will be great friends for a long time.

I can't actually remember, or be bothered to look up, what my goals for last year were. Suffice to say I've met some of the goals and failed with others.

Some of the highs this year include watching Rupert Elder win San Remo, watching James Keys start everyones year off great with a $1m score, and finally reaching a real final table of my own in the summer. I had a few lows but really the only big one was FTP being bitches and stealing/holding a lot of my money.

I don't really do New Years resolutions because if I need to do something I aim to just do it, I don't need some arbitary moment in time to change my life for the better. However establishing goals are fine... so here goes!


Live:

• -play 50+ live tournaments
• -play 200hrs+ of live cash.
• - be ready to play 2 non holdem games for the WSOP.

Online:

• Play a minimum of 4 days a week for the year.
• Play 4k+ online tournaments.
• Play over 100k hands of cash

Personal Life:

• Get in shape. I've been super lazy for too long, time to get buff (fat chance?)
•  Spend a lot less non-poker time at my computer.
• Come up with a business project that actually starts/happens.

 I really don't know how much live cash I will play, but when I go to live tournaments I will try and fill my spare time grinding. I'm really the worst grinder ever, and this has to change. I should easily make the 50 live tournaments I think, I'm generally always intersted in playing when I'm at a location.

Last year I wanted something like 200k of online cash hands, erm I didn't even get 50k. If I can get my sleep schedule close to something 'regular', I should be able to make my online goals easily.

I would also like to be competative again athletically. I played a lot of sports as a kid, and through my teans, but after university it's just been non-existent.

I'm not sure exactly what kinda schedule I will be looking at but I want to play football again, probably some 5 a side thing, and maybe even play some table tennis again since it's by far the sport I've excelled the most at lifetime. I really hate running, but I will have to get my ass on a treadmill a lot for any of this is possible.


This is probably the most boring blog post ever, but as the year progresses hopefully I can provide some interesting updates and god forbid something insightful.

Craped Out in Greece

So, the other week I was in Loutraki Greece playing live tournament poker for some series under the EPT Banner. I guess I will start from the beginning.

I was rooming with Rupert Elder for this one. We caught the same flight and then drove over from Athens. It's about a 150 euro cab ride either direction and we were all up for saving money so I rented a car for a whole week, 2 named drivers, for only £71!! Grinders.

food in Loutraki!!

When we got to Athens Airport it was only to meet some crazy lady holding up a sign with my name on, which all the poker reporters on the same flight had already seen and were laughing at. They jelly. We went to get our car and it is definitely one of the smallest 5 door cars on the market. It also had a pretty dodgy tire.

Regardless it was a fun mini road trip through some country neither of us had ever been to before. At the gas station I asked a lady how to say "thank you" in Greek, and having heard the answer knew that speaking Greek was over.

Anyway we got to the Casino pretty easily and got settled for the poker the next day. Day 1A did not go great, I played ok for the most part, maybe 3 hands early I wasn't pleased with but in the end it was just some idiot who thought he made a "perfect read" that really cost me a lot of how my tournament could have been.

(note: tune out for a few paragraphs if you don't understand poker talk)

At 200/400/50 some stupid aussie guy opens utg+1 to... idk 900 and 2 people flat. He has 12k total and I flat the button with AQo. Kinda weird spot, I just don't think I should be stacking so if I squeezed it would only really be to fold to more action. Both blinds call and we see a T94r flop. Everyone checks. Turn is a Q, checks to the aussie and he shoves??!

In context there was a previous hand where he'd limped UTG, I'd isolated button with AT with a tight image and he peeled. On a K9x89 board I checked back twice and folded when he shoved river for 4x pot and showed 98 after I asked him what he had.

Anyway back to the hand, the first flatter calls off maybe 40k stack and everyone else folds. The aussie has QJ and the caller has KQ. So fml the only exact hands I can beat, they have. I was pretty sure I was calling off the aussie, given that he would have bet an overpair on the flop and it did seem like he almost definitely had a Q. The KQ guy though has to realise that the only Q combo he can beat is QJ though. If the aussie was opening Q5s or something there's no chance I would have missed it, and really QJ was too wide as it is anyway. If he hadn't shoved and bet smaller, or checked I would have ended up winning that pot. Or the KQ guy actually playing correct when he beats exactly one combo of hands for a almost a 2x pot shove and then has 4 players still behind, any of whome could have some kind of nuts.

Talking to him after the tournament, he said he'd talked to his friends and they all concluded it was a perfect read. I'm just like wow your friends are just as dumb as you. Dude came 5th obv and I busted early day 2 after taking ~22k stack into day 2 from 30k starting.

So yah I built a little early on an absolutely great day 2 table, but flipped AKs into QQ vs Roberto Romanello btn vs sb. Pretty much the most standard spot in the world, if he hadn't deicded to 4-bet click it back, and then put not enough money in the middle. lol
He's a good guy actually. I saw him at the airport with his friend Ranni, and hung out with Roberto a little on this trip.

We actually happened to play a few tables together this trip too. We both ended up final tabling a 300e turbo, where I came 5th for 1.3k euros. Was kinda meh since one dude folded JJ pre in a stupid spot and cashed for more, and on the FT I lost AJ to 34s, AK to JTs and then watched someone else punt off then win. Just got raped on the ICM, still happy to put up a greek flag on hendon mob though.

After busting the main event, I hemed and hawed before entering the 2200 euro side event. It was soft so was ok, but I'd just bust the main that day then played till just past midnight and busted 2nd last level of the day flipping 55 into AK for 25bbs each. Good times. not. Missed most of the stars party and then they ran out of beer.

I actually played pretty well and just bricked everything else, including bubbling a 500+500+100 euro bounty turbo, where I had zero bounties. Yep that's how it was going. Even lost 1200 euros at 2/5 cash, where I lost a ~1500euro pot with TT ai vs AK pre, when AK overflatted btn pre, sb 3-bets redic small everyone calls and I fistpumped it in like I had the nuts :(

In other news Rupert went deep in the main event, but busted 13th, to the eventual winner Zimmy! Zimmy was a university friend of Rups at Imperial and I'd met him  a few months earlier in the first San Remo of 2011. Nice guy and very happy to see him win.

mr nico, zippy zimmy, tricky ricky, rup the greek , me, big bjorn. bunch of fucking heroes.

On the way back our front left tire was flat. Like totally flat. But we only had 90mins and 118km to get to the airport. there was no other option. We loaded all our stuff, packed David Vamplew in too, and pumped the tire up at a gas station and just crossed our fingers. At the first toll I even sent Rup out of the car just to give it a once over! The lady in the toll booth just looked at us like we we're morons. Too right imo!

So since then I've finished unpacking most of my stuff, and built a desk! I finally have a proper grind station again and look forward to some internet poker in the short future.

wut up grindstation!

I've totally given up on going to Prague this year. It seems like a great festival of poker with WPT, EPT and GSOP (plus ipops!) all working together to put a nice little trip together. However recent trips have taken a lot out of me, and I don't really think I'll always be very happy whilst in Prague. It's cold, it's problem. So I'm staying at home (where I guess it's also just as cold), playing the £2500+125 GUKPT Grand Final this Friday and just having a relaxing winter break overall.

I will also be skipping PCA, and a trip to Australia. Last year was super fun, but I would dread the long plane trip and expenses were super high. A ticket would be at least £1200 return, and Australia is a suprisingly expensive country. The trip for me was only really salvalged because James Keys 1, decided to bink, and 2, decided to let me have 5% one lazy afternoon whilst we were just sitting on the couches shooting the shit.

yes my first trip down under ends up being saved by the idiot on the right

I will enjoy counting the money I will save. WPT Ireland is early January, and I will give it a blast, although it seems like it's just one quickie weekend and no side events :(. At least it will probably just be me Jake Cody and a bunch of Irish people! Always sounds good to me.

I'm unsure on EPT Deuville in late January. I went 2 years ago and really liked it, but only because Timex was there, I met the beautifull Melanie Weisner for the first time, and I ran deep in the Main Event. hence my mind is biased.
 

<3 you MEL!! The only American Jewish Princess for me!

Mickey went last year and rated it as worst trip of all time. He might be right because it's in essentially a French town the other side of the Channel from Brighton, and is just a miserably cold little seaside town that I remember being shut down for the winter.

I can't wait till the Spring already. In the meantime I will probably go ahead and try to play all the UKIPTs coming up because the buyins have gone up, they've added a "High Roller" event and also I want to be on Channel 4. Gotta prove to my mum I can get on TV too!

Skill Games in San Remo

Well I wasn't as excited for this San Remo trip as normal. For a few reasons, the main one being my lack of success live recently.
I hadn't cashed since late June at the WSOP and came into this not playing super good. However 2 "winning" online sessions in a row and I was quite into it. I played reasonably well day 1 of the Main Event, peacefully grinding my way into 60k for day 2. However this was a fustrating day where I wasn't really bringing any heat and busted relatively early.

I kept bringing fire in the sides, making day 2 of the 2.2ke with 22.8k from a 20k starting stack....
In the win the button 330e turbo I vpiped 2 hands, one where I lost 42% of my stack with KK pre and then the last one to bust when I'd just decided to blind out.

On day 2 of the 2.2ke I also busted a 1.1ke with the turbo in the evening. Therefore I bust 3 tournaments in a day. I was thrilled!

A little drained for the final 1.1ke side I almost didn't play but forced myself into it. The 80 total field I think reflects how lethagic everyone was. At the start of the day I was already wishing I hadn't registered.
To sum up day 1, I waited around for a long time, had a 30min heater and ended the day with ~60k from a 10k starting stack. With only 80 runners though, we came back with 12 when 8 paid.
With 11 left I called off a bunch of my stack with TT vs AJ and AK and held on a board similar to 9436ddd when AK had Kd and no other diamonds were dead. I lol'd. This meant I went into the bubble quite big, but my seat draw was bad with 3/4 other best playes left directly to my left, and all with stacks. Everything to my right was short.
I was holding it together, and then 5 handed raised CO with 30bbs, and called a 3bet with KK. Was a pretty bad call in retrospect and I knew it immediately. The opponent bet twice on AxxT and I folded turn. He later revealed he had AK tho! I was definitely freerolling the rest of my tournament and ran good enough to win. We chopped HU and played for 2.5ke instead of the 10k difference.
HU we started even stacked  80bbs deep, but it didn't last long. It defintiely didn't feel like it took more than 40mins. I was very pleased to win and actually put my 2nd ever 1st place onto the Hendon Mob. It also meant I got unstuck for the trip, needing 3rd to breakeven :(

On the IRL front I now live in bayswater! A bit of a struggle getting my shit together for the move, but I managed to move all my stuff from A to B! Of course I realise now that 40% of my things are useless to me; I only hope I can it ebay away.

I still need a desk, and also actually finish unpacking. Mickey has been really good to put up with all my boxes everywhere, although he's probably just happy to have internet!

My week is basically to fully unpack, play the pokerstars.fr FCOOP 100e rebuy on Thursday and then play some live poker Fri/Sat. Sunday I play online obviously, then EPT Loutraki. I wasn't super into this trip, but I have Euros to blast right now. With the Euro dying on our television sets, I might as well get rid of the excess I'm holding.

In this moment, I blog.

It's been a busy week. I'll start with the poker.

I've played some online poker and some live poker. It has not been going well.

I've played a few days online, much more than normal and I credit that to both @mickeydp and WCOOP on pokerstars. It has not gone well. Basically the less said the better. I am currently on a ridiculous downswing online, the type that makes you reevaluate if you are even a winner in the games you play.
I really do think I am, and it's really just motivation that I am using to improve as a player and to work harder as a grinder. Or maybe I'm just decieving myself, who's to know.

Live I still play pretty good, although it's really a lot easier of a game. Mostly because there is more information available and also because it's 30 hands/hr an absolute idiot could get it right. I played the European Championship of Poker £1070 this week and busted close to the money. Then went home and busted the WCOOP main getting relatively unfortuanate in that... even though I got it in bad (bluff shoving QQ pre no good and then losing a flip zzzz).

I've had 2 days off, and then back to the grind tomorrow in a £550 live satellite to the EPT London Main Event. I've virtually never played any of these type of sats but hopefully I just run good in them right off the bat. I am a premium staller....


Today I spent half a day with Mickey Peterson. We went to collect the keys to our new flat next to Hyde Park. It's not the biggest place, but suits our needs well. I may post some pictures if I get time and come back to the subject.

It marks a newish chapter in my life. I've hung around with poker players plenty, and also lived with them for reasonable periods of time. On poker trips, such as San Remo ( or insert one of many major European cities, if there's a major poker tournament) for a week, or the WSOP where we are gone for 6-8 weeks at a time.
However my home, my 'base' has always been with people who don't really play any poker. Whilst it has been fun, it's definitely held me back professionally. If I'm gonna be the illest I gotta be living with people that can make me better at poker and gambling in general.


This upcoming week is EPT London of course. I've never done well at this series, but that's stupid because it's my home town where I know the regs best and quite simply have home advantage. Hopefully I get a little run good and things fall my way this week!

Update time!

Since my last blogpost, I have been to GUKPT Luton and EPT barcelona. Neither wen't very well and I've now not cashed in anything live since WSOP  :(

 (also Spain as a whole, sucks)

 I haven't really been grinding very hard, although I've done some. I played last Sunday, Monday, Thursday and Friday!
I even have plans to play tomorrow! (saturday)

Much of this is to do with WCOOP. They don't really change my day very much since it's only really 2-4 more tournaments a day for me, but it does make all the prizepools on Pokerstars of their other tournaments a little bigger. Combined with my renewed happiness with 15+ tabling and we're in business!
My current strategy is to pick 'good' tournaments and then just blast my way through the volume. So far pretty unsuccesssful, but I am confident I'm bringing good intesity to my decision making; and getting a little luckier at the right moments would probably have me reporting many good things.

I might even be more into cash actually. Had a pretty fun little session grinding a little NL100.Definitely ran pretty well but I should probably be doing it a lot more often when I'm not doing very much.


Coming up next is a busy little period for me. I must find a new place pretty soon. I'm currently searching for stuff with mement_mori but it's not gone very far at all yet. Hopefully tomorrow will change and we'll view something we like.

 This is obviously running concurrently with WCOOP, afterwhich there's a couple of random big buyin tournaments at the Palms Beach Casino here in sunny London. They're capped at very small fields and I'm not sure if I will even play them yet. However I just don't understand how there'd be a lineup I'm not +EV in... so we'll see.

At pretty much the same time, theres the European Championship of Poker, held in London, and then EPT London. I've never really played many live satellites but I'm always curious for some mutual stalling so I'm definitely there :P.

I'm currently skipping Partouche, as I did with WPT Paris. Not really interseted in any of that, nor WSOPE. I feel old when I say this, but France is an expensive place. Everyone should learn from the Timex school of thought: nits gonna nit.

I will be going back to San Remo though, and am likely to do Amsterdam and EPT Greece. The live tournament circuit isn't really all that exciting for the back end of this year really.

Either way the plan is to work hard and just start winning things. Untill next time!

SFD Requested

#everydayimblogging.

So this is a quick overview and some of my thoughts on the recent riots in my home town.

First of all I was affected relatively little by them. They weren't happening in my borough and I never travelled anywhere close. However it was in quite a few areas and many people I know were directly affected. This is the wiki page for more information.

So some dude gets shot by the PO PO in Tottenham, and there was unacceptable information about his death. People mad, and some angry protesting starts. Soon though rioting starts up in other areas of London, as people hear about it on tv and they also realise that police aren't taking many offensive manouvers.
This is because they don't have enough numbers, and also probably because they don't wanna take any heat from the press for police brutality. They, in my opinion, definitely would have. hey, accidents happen.

This goes through from Saturday, culminating in the Hackney Riots that were in open daylight along a busy high street on Monday afternoon.
After a short Sunday session :(, this is basically the first time I hear about it, and decide to watch a lot of TV about it.
I knew that things were popping off and that night was the worst in London. Things were happening all over the place, lots of burning cars, looting, then buildings burning.

they got a sony warehouse!

This starts off riots/looting in other major cities around the country. Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester etc. The next day there was a lot less reported looting in London, and nothing much appeared to happen at night.


All day they told us there'd be 16k policemen on call, over 6k the night before. I guess this probably helped.
However it did kick off in the other cities. 3 people killed in Birmingham, street battles in Manchester etc.
These cities have a long history of football hooliganism and also are much poorer places than the capital. Some also have a long history of racial tension. So there's just a lot of people in the streets at night, and probably a decent amounts of vandalism and looting.
Copycat violence, obviously but a problem because these people like to fight.

Today is Thursday and most of the news has been about catching suspects. They don't seem to have reported much more violence, probably because there was no cause, just looting. Also once people have stolen shit, they wanna sell it (or use it).

GET SOME ELECTRONICS BOYS

these idiots getting clothes

run fatboy! run!

cool story bro. sorry CCTV got you.

We saw lots of police on tv busting down doors. To date there have been 922 arrests and about 450 convictions. In london around half were under 18, probably like this dude!

is he serious?

It's the summer holidays and they were able to manuever effectively because they play a lot better communication tools available to them over previous generations of riot/looters.
Apparently it was mostly BBM, although that perplexes me since I thought most kids got iphones.


At the start this was a protest. Then it was looting, and eventually just random stealing. Below is a clip of a kid that has just got his bike stolen. Then they take his psp!

Currently the focus of discussion is the social economical factors that caused these riots, and kept them going. blah blah blah. people be poor, black people get a rougher deal from police. This is all probably true, and also people just being opportunistic.


On Monday night #riotcleanup and other such movements started, and people have been helping out clean the streets.

1,2

so cliche

 From what I know of the actual fighting, i.e. the clips tv/the internets, there were many running battles along the streets, where the police would charge, move the rioters and then retreat because lack of numbers. In many instances places were being robbed for 1-2hrs with no police around, simply because of lack of numbers.

The pitch battles included lots of missiles from rioters, whilst riot police tried to hold their positions.

rioters ammo.

Whilst the kids were opportunistic, they could have done with better coaching. For a start, don't show your face.

DO NOT STEAL SOME GOOD SHIT AND THEN POST IT ON FACEBOOK.

DO NOT STEAL RICE. WTF oUOSLFJNFLJANSLDHFNliksidhFIlnsdifhjnldsfnjgdifjngpi;djfp;g

at first i was gonna say 'no comment'. but this kind of stupidity deserves more words.

DO NOT ROB A STORE THAT IS SELLING STUFF AT 70% OFF.

get the till, sure, but you're clearly too late buddy. cctv ftl.

This is a "pound shop". That means the most expensive item they sell is £1.

facepalm central.

Hells yes this what I'm talking about.

I certainly would have recommended phone shops and jewlry shops only.

got 'em.

get the phones

amirite

I don't condone the riots, looting or any of the vandalism, just discussing tactics.

all the best grinders, be it poker players or looters, wear backpacks. #unimpressed

Whilst I kid, there was some very saddening waste and destruction. before and after pics.

jumping for her life, I would have dangled then dropped though.

the streets of london :(

Amidst all the drama, choas and destruction, this wasn't even really the most important news of the week to the world. The French lending to the busto EU countries, and USA being a AA+ country will probably affect your life and my life a lot more over the next few years. The stock market has already been hugely volatile, and gold is just soaring.

WSOP AND BEYOND

I ended the WSOP this summer with nothing more of interest happening. After my FT I didn't cash anything else, and just went home after the first part of the summer. Looking back, it quite a pleasing time overall, every trip with a 6fig cash has to be good for me right now (sic brags).

getting it in bad prob :(

Since getting back I've been rediculously apathetic. When I first got back from Vegas I just wasted the first 2 weeks away. Many of the days I had such a volatile sleep schedule I ended up not being able to do anything. I still have errands to run that I should have done weeks ago, however I am changing that. The last 2 days I've been getting my IRL grind on, which includes this blog!
 
To go with my laziness, I've played a total of 2 days online, both losing, and one live £1k turbo in London which was actually quite a riot. TOMORROW I WILL BE PLAYING ONLINE MTTS!!
Hopefully it goes well. I've been extremely disappointed with my intensity of late. Everyday I wake up and think that playing poker would just totally suck, but then do absolutely nothing productive all day. The result is that I am now an absolute expert on Big Brother USA strategy. To be fair it's just a great show though. chilltown4life.

To rectify this, the plan is to keep playing untill I win, because winning is fun. Sorry for making tournament poker tougher people.


 Amazingly I still haven't gotten a 35k euro cheque from my EPT San Remo cash. I'm meant to be getting an answer tomorrow, and I'll be chasing them up hard since it's been so long. I had jsut assumed I'd be good once I got back from Vegas but sadly not.

rando san remo pic cos i need more pics.

Next week there is some chance I go to GUKPT Luton, for 2 reasons. 1, I have a seat to one and need to use it. 2, I looked at the pics of GUKPT Wallsall and everyone looked like mugs. Time to put up a(nother) win imo.

I will be going to EPT barcelona at the end of this month, and then decide on partouche which still have never been to. I may not be able to since online superstar mement_mori will be here in London flat hunting with me. We will probably be looking for something before EPT London, meaning skipping Partouche and doing IRL stuff.
I'm pretty excited about this since I want to live in a sick location with a very good poker player, to improve and make money. Also mickey is a #truegrinder which will definitely spur me on to make $ yo.

WSOP

It's been a whole month since I last blogged. I've just been in Vegas playing poker at the WSOP. It's been hard to blog since I've rarely been on my laptop. I haven't played any online poker at all this trip, mostly being on a portable internet device. Twitter has been a lot more fun.

So far I've played 10 tournaments and had 4 cashes, one final table. I think I've played pretty well overall and ran pretty decently. I still cant produce wins, but I'm extremely happy with my standard of play. Maybe A- overall. I've definitely made some mistakes, but yesterday was my first day where my head wasn't really correct. I played fine overall but definitely not 'above the rim'.
So I should end with 12 WSOP tournaments this summer, which is really not that much. However when you keep making day 2s, it limits the volume one racks up. thinly veiled obv.

There's only one side event left, before the main event! I'm relatively excited, but have to sort my shit out now. Tomorrow is American Independance Day, and we leave the house on the 6th. I still have no plans for accommodation, and would also like to renew my car which expires the same day.

Overall I've really enjoyed this summer's trip. I've hung out with some really good people all summer, and a fun birthday and have played reasonable poker. My only disappointment has really been my lack of cash game action. I've played 2hrs on 2/5 in about 33days, which is just abysmal. Tomorrow I want to play some sats and grind live cash all day. grinders gonna grind.

Nothing to see here

Well pretty much nothing happened in my life this week. Was expecting to be up 100k... or more because why shouldn't I be?
Well. Effort. Since my late post I've played 4 days of online tounrament poker, but only Sunday was a full schedule. 3 of my sessions have just been because of SCOOP turbos. At 10pm GMT it's possible to play a decent 2.5hr period grinding just turbos when there's SCOOP ones. over this period I didn't have much luck, although came 3rd in the ongame 10.15pm turbo and then won it yesterday to put me just above even for the week.

I played PKR Live 1A today, a £750 buyin tournament in Sunny London! It went amazingly bad. I won basically one flip with 9k from a 20k starting stack, and just lost a lot. I ran bad and played bad. I actually think I misadjusted to the whole tournament.I'm a little disappointed by the performance overall, but no need to get all emo about it. Got a massage though so at least I got an errand done.

For now I have only 11 more days in London Town! It includes 2 Sundays and maybe I'll try and play 5 other days. Online poker is really good right now, and I should be taking advantage of it. I haven't really got round to a full session grind. I might even try a 10hr registration period, just to see if I can get into it. Micky swears by the longer session being a lot more profitable, and he's almost probably right. A little stamina tester... some random pre for wsop!

For anyone going to Vegas for 6/7 weeks, it pays to be prepared. Hotels/houses, cars/taxis, money/no money. Yesterday I went to my bank to deposit 20k euros in cash, but couldn't because you need a receipt to prove it isn't drug money or terrorism or something. Either way it's not helping me out any. I need to get a lot of live USD right now, and am currently going online busto trying to get it. Not the worst scenario going into the summer but I'm about to have the least amount of money online that I've ever had. Guess the plan is to just win money and high five the rail.


Right now the NBA playoffs are down to the final 4 teams. It's been pretty exciting. NBA league pass is a little pricey, but definitely a really good way to watch it. I've become a huge fan of it this season, and will definitely be watching next year. They almost could put adverts in, just because what they currently have during time outs is just ludicrous. I wish they had something different, maybe a music video or something. rotate 5 songs during a game or something. please.

Today I'm gonna make a schedule for the next 11 days. I'm all about the errands right now. I've been making lists a lot recently on post it notes.. A trick I've borrowed from queso.Preparation is the precursor to victory after all.

ahhhh yeeahhhh

It's been nice hanging out at home doing not so much. A week in, I've grinded tournaments on Friday and Sunday. Friday went badly although I probably had like 25% ITM rate. I ft bubbled something like 3 of my 8 biggest tournaments of the day or so, and had numerous cash bubbles too. Still lost money though, because I just couldn't convert.

Sunday went pretty terribly. I had like 2 cashes on the day, but did make day 2 of the ftops.fr. Somehow after spending the first 3 hrs of the tournament with less than starting stack, I had the CL 5 handed when we chopped, for 45k euros! I'm pretty pleased with the result, had to give 12k to Jack because we swapped a lot pre tournament.
I'm super pleased with how this month is going now. I've cashed for a bunch ,had some nice success buying action... and we're only 10 days in! Hopefully I can put up a few scores before Vegas and then show everyone how this shit is done for reals in the Summer.

I was planning to play some SCOOPS today, maybe I'll just jump in the turbos later tonight. Was planning to play the HU but it just feels like too much hassle. This week I have only Wednesday and Saturday 'off' as SCOOP is just killing it. play play play

Trip over

Rupert Elder won EPT San Remo 2011!

Ship it! HOLLA!



So to make things even better, he and Max chopped HU and I had a great day. Totally surreal. I cashed for 75k euros from the boys combined, thanks to Rup having like 2-1 CL when it went down. For most of the day though (untill i got tipsy) it kinda just felt like I'd won $5k or something. I guess 12th place in EPTs does to you.

Most of my joy came from Rup winning, and now going 'big time'! As one of my closest friends in poker, I am so pleased to see him win a major title. I'm also super pleased for Max with his back to back 2nds. Obviously a very impressive feat, and lots of money! Finally congrats to Xuan who came 3rd. I met her mid way through the tounrament, the 4 of us hanging after then end of the later days of the tournament. She's very good in Italy!


For now I am back in London till Vegas. I'm over travelling right now and need the month off to prepare for the summer. I will probably be grinding large volumes though before then, as SCOOP is on from Sunday and I'd really like to produce big scores online. Working hard is the only way to make it happen.

My brother might even be coming to visit for a few days. He's just finishing his last dissertations now, and has no plan post university. He's asked if he can learn poker. He currently has basically zero knowledge, I'm gonna try and give him a crash course in how to learn poker and probably just back him right from the start. I'm not actually sure I approve of him getting into poker, my mother certainly wouldn't, but if he turns out to like it he's definitely smart enough to be playing mid-high stakes poker in a very short period of time. When he was younger he was one of the best online at Ra2 for a while, and was better than me at that point even though I was 4 years older.

Sick brags I'm very close to my Jan 1st target for profit on the year (i think over actually). It was always a rather conservative target, given I just assumed I'd never have a huge score (and still haven't. It's coming though).
Hopefully 2011 is gonna be a huge year for me; I feel like I'm freerolling the next 7 months of action even though I have a reasonable chance of losing chunks back if I just run bad.

Spirits are high tho and I definitely have a lot of momentum right now!

Oh m(a)y.

I'm SOOOO bored and waiting for my friend ricky to get back from playing the 10ke high roller right now.

Berlin started super bad. I punted it off and hated myself in the main event. Well it looked like a punt and probably was in that exact spot, but it was a lot closer than it might have looked for the most part (I think/hope). Of course the plan was to make it all back grinding the 2k euro side event, where I worked really hard and then flipped to bust 7th for just under 20k euro. I had a good look at it, first was like 150k euro so a decent shot.
Straight after busting that, I even went straight into the 500+500+50 side and won some bounties! Fell jsut short of cashing though, quite disappointing since I was running pretty hot early.

I was rooming with Rupert for that, and went straight from there to Seville. We hated Seville. The main town is quite nice and things, I'm sure people would really like to go, but I'm done with Spain. I may refuse to go back for years. BUSTO ASS COUNTRY. I've just grown to increasingly hate Spain. What a terrible country to go to, and I've been to a few....

The $3.3k also had the worst dealers I've ever encountered in my lifetime. Usually I don't get involved ever with the mechanics of the game, but wow I actually felt like I needed to be a 2nd dealer at the table just because the dealers had no idea what they were doing. I won't bother with details, but they couldn't even follow the action if they tried.

Afte that went home for a few days. (rebecca) Black Friday happened, and then I FT'd the 2nd chance. With 9 left I had about 550k, 2nd had about 350k and we got it in my KK vs his AJ for all the chips. Was ludicrious since 3rd had like 310k. Ended up coming 6th since I lost that pot obv.

Nex was Ireland for the Irish Open. I had a pretty good table with Romanello to my right. I was feeling pretty confident even though I chipped down from 20k to 16k, then played an absurd hand where there was 16k on the turn of K936 (with AK) and 10.5k behind. I ended up betting 4.5k on the river instead of jamming just to make him call, he went AI on a J river and I cried. Obviously I called and lost to JJ. Sad times.

I snap went home then in order to play online Sundays, lost money and then went to San Remo, where I am right now. Staying with Ricky Fohrenbach, Jack Powell, and Rupert Elder in a pretty sweet setup with 2 rooms and a communal living room for like 104 euros/night. Anyway this trip started off the worst. First I had to pay a 180 euro cab ride by myself because I fucked up travel plans. Then to get into the main event, I had to queue up for 2.5hrs jsut to register with cash. I was hating life and turned up like 25mins late because I had to go eat food. Eventually I got in ad had a good start, ending the 1st day with 90k. I ran super good all tournament and at very end of day 4 had 2.1m before losing a 1m pot jamming a3o into ak which was super sad.

I started day 5 with 1.6m, with 24 people left but could't really get anything going. Just a few hours ago I ended up busting a very disappointing 12th. Oh well first world problems. Tomorrow is the final table and I have an exciting 7% in Rupert Elder who is 1/8, and 2.5% in hotkarlmc who is 2/8 both with 8m in chips when theres 29m in play. I bought both action pre tournament and I'm very very excited. I actually only ended up having one very small swap for 2% in this tournament with Nico Cardyn who I think is very good. He busted just before the money though, however just chopped the 2k side for 100k euros! So a smart guy to chop with, unfortuanately his run good came in the wrong spot for me. My max win tomorrow is like 75k euro, basically I'm just hoping Rupert and Max chop HU. If I win loads I'll blog very soon!

it's been a really bad week

Well I guess I'll recap the GUKPT main. I survived till about 30mins from the end of day 1b. I don't think I played very well at all, not redic bad but definitely about 3/10. I don't think I got myself into all the right situations that I could have. The start of the day was actually really fun. We played 5/6 handed (on a ten handed table when it's full!) with highlandfox and Sam Trickett.

This was really good, there were dead blinds out there and I had position on Sam. He's obviously been on a super heater recently, crushing all super high roller $100k+ buyin tournaments for... well millions. Anyway a £1590 GUKPT is obviously not all his main concern and he was going for it in every spot, especially at the start and so it made it good for me. Eventually the table actually filled with Toby Lewis, JP Kelly and Stuart Rutter. I think on the table no one was over 29. So anyway we just nitted it up 10 handed with antes :). Regardless in the end it didn't pan out, I actually won a flip vs Toby when I was jamming bottom of my range and had 26bbs going into my bustout with QQ vs AA. Mickey says I'm results oriented for thinking this, but I didn't even wanna stack, I felt I should have called pre. I think it's a lot closer than he is, because a new player to the table came and 3.2x it UTG+1 9 handed, and I felt like calling might have been slightly superior to 3-bet/calling just because he's 'not bluffing' so I figure his opening range is like AJ+/77+ and he folds almost everything but TT+. He stacks or gives up chips on good boards for methat he couldn't pre (AND MAYBE I DONT LOSE TO AA).


So Mickey snap left as is totally standard for any poker in any foreign land upon losing all their points in the main tournament of the trip. I had a really really bad Sunday. I made a 2 (maybe 3) really terrible mistakes. Like almost unforgivable (although they we're general 'close' spots). Was really displeased with myself and just been wasting time ever since.
This is mostly what the title of this post is about. I wish I could actually figure out how to grind again. Today I played a full 600 hands of cash on rando euro sites. I have about 1.4k euros of bonuses to clear on 3 different sites, I hope to give it a decent go. Played  fine today, but was only really 4-6 tabling. I'm not very happy with my lack of ability to play many tables at cash right now, it's really hurting my bonus whoring attempts.

Today I rode my bike down the street to the shops tho! Didn't die either (HENCE THE BLOGGING IDIOT). I'm only missing a helmet right now, in order to actually make use of it.

Lot's of poker this Sunday evening! I can actually list the days I plan to play online poker right now. Super into lists right now and have a full life plan all the way through to the end of wsop! I doubt I'll follow it fully, but I feel very motivated to make money at the moment, and that means clicking buttons.

27/3       
28/3              
30/3              
31/3
1/4               
3/4                         
6/4    
10/4   

Bet you didn't think I'd actually list that crap. But yes I did! My current plan for the rest of my life (till mid july)

ept berlin         4/4    sat    220re
            5/4    ME1A    5300e
            6/4    KO    1k+1k+100e t
            7/4        2150e
            8/4        1100e
            9/4    2pm    1100e
            9/4    6pm    500+500+50e KOT
            9/4    9pm    330te
            10/4    2pm    330te


seville            12/4        3300e
            14/4        220e
            15/4    HU    110e


irish open        21/4    sat    220e
            22/4        3500e
            23/4    turbo    330e
            24/4        1100e
            24/4    turbo    220e
            25/4    bounty    330e

ept san remo     2pm    26/4     sat    550e  1r
        6pm    26/4    sat    220er
        9pm    26/4        330te
        12pm    27/4    ME    5300e
        8pm    28/4    bounty    1k+1k+100e
        2pm    30/4        2200e
        8pm    30/4        330te
        3pm    2/5        1100e
        8pm    2/5        330te




ept main event        6/5    sat    550e  1r
            7/5    5pm    800+200+100te
            7/5    7pm sat    550e  1r
            7/5        330te
            8/5    ME    10600e
            9/5    12pm ko    500+500+50te   
            9/5    6pm    1100e
            9/5    9pm    330te
            10/5    5pm    2150e
            10/5    9pm    330te
            11/5    2pm    1100e
            11/5    9pm  ko    300+100+30te
            12/5        330te


SCOOP        6pm    8/5    6-m    22    300k*
        6pm    8/5    6-m    215    750k*
        10pm    8/5        22    300k*
        10pm    8/5        215    750k*
        7pm    9/5    6-m    5.5r    250k*
        7pm    9/5    6-m    55r    500k*
        10pm    10/5    HU    16.5    100k
        10pm    10/5    HU    162    200k
        10pm    12/5    ko    27    200k*
        10pm    12/5    ko    265    400k*
        7pm    13/5    ante    16.5    100k*
        7pm    13/5    ante    165    200k*
        1am    13/5    2xc    16.5    150k
        1am    13/5    2xc    162    400k
        7pm    14/5    SH    215    150k
        6pm    15/5        215    1m*
        10pm    15/5        215    2m*
        10pm    16/5    4-m    33    100k
        10pm    16/5    4-m    320    300k
        1am    16/5        11rt    250k
        1am    16/5        109rt    500k
        10pm    18/5    ante    11r    200k*
        10pm    18/5    ante    109r    400k*
        7pm    20/5    cu    22    300k
        7pm    20/5    cu    215    500k
        1am    20/5    NLo/8    22t    50k
        8.30pm    21/5    HU    270    300k*
        6pm    22/5    6-m    215    1m*
        10pm    22/5        109    1m*
        10pm    22/5        1050    3m*


pkrlive london        19/5        £800

wsop            2/6    5k
            3/6    1k
            6/6    1.5k    6-m
            7/6    1.5k    3xc
            8/6    1.5k    sho
            9/6    1.5k    plhe
            11/6    1.5k   
            12/6    1k    sunday
            13/6    1.5k    plo
            15/6    2.5k    6-m
            16/6    1.5k
            18/6    1.5k
            19/6    1k    sunday
            21/6    2.5k
            22/6    1.5k
            23/6    5k    6-m
            25/6    1.5k
            26/6    1k    sunday
            27/6    10k    6-m

So yah. That's when I'm not at home. HAPPY STEALING MY FOOD.

I've now...

... played 8 days straight of poker, and hoping for 3 more. Tomorrow is the GUKPT day 1b Main Event. It's a £1590 buyin and should get a decent first place.

Yesterday I finished 6th in the GUKPT 6-max £275, so unfortuanately another final table bubble. Mickey tells me I'm not a closer. sad face. I mean it was only £7.5k for the win, but I wanted to just do well since there's no other reason to be there. I got really lucky on the money bubble when I managed to get AJo into TT and KK. Kinda wasn't my fault, KK made a rediculous flat in the sb of a button open and cost himself a monster stack.
I also lied in my previous blog, I have actually played 3 6-max tournaments before in the UK, I just forgot. GUKPT confused me with their first shorthanded event (i think) ever.

Today I played 2 tournaments online, and came 2nd in the bigger one, so pretty pleased. HU I just got trucked, don't really like what I did. Oh well on to the next one.

I don't exactly feel burned out, but wouldn't mind having a rest. I'm probably only enjoying it because I can't really stop winning.

play play play

Well it's mid-March and I haven't really watched much NCAA because I'm finding it difficult to get hold of games. I haven't tried so hard as I've been grinding and grinding. Today is Tuesday morning (bed time soon!) and I've played every day since Thursday. So far everyday has been online, apart from Saturday where I grinded a live £550 side at the Victoria Casino LONDON TOWN.

It's been quite a mixture resultswise. For myself I've just been raping, whilst for my backers I'm just doing the absolute worst. I don't really win huge tournaments because that's not how my life has gone so far up to this point (pls God let that change at least once, ty) but I've done well overall.
Sunday I totally bricked out for the absolute worst session of the week. In an EPT satellite I came 4th when first 2 spots got a 7.6k euro package, 3rd gets 5.4k euros cash and 4th gets 0. I was not best pleased by a huge amount. I got super unlucky in a bunch of spots, including multiple spots where people did stupid stuff and I was just loling untill the board ran out and I lost.

Today went super bad overall, but somehow I managed to luckbox a winner takes all sat to the Irish Open in a 22 rebuy. I ran so good on the FT, that that was probably where all my run good was stored for the day. IN other tournaments, some really weird shit happened where I got AI 4-way twice with AK and didn't win against vastly inferior plays (and hands). I think overall I was about 7/10 which is reasonable. I ran pretty bad in all of my biggest buyins, and definitely tilted in 2 spots. I only note this because it's actually very rare for me to tilt, and whilst I do make mistakes, I very very rarely actually make them whilst conciously thinking 'hey this is a mistake!'. I was flipping both times (although I think lucky to do so) and if I run a little better I just go on and win all the monies (maybe).

Right now I'm up at 7am because I don't really want to wake up early. Later today is a £275 side event at the Vic at 7.30pm and I plan to win. There's gonna be like zero money for first, but it's a short handed live tournament, and I've never actually played one before in the UK. With the low buyin it should just be a hilarious button clicking fest. The structure is actually really strong for such a small buyin, and I'd be very excited to run even averagely as that should be enough for me to build towers.

In the £550 side I played, I opened 4 times in my first 2 hours of play, 3 of them I got limp reraised. If I was watching this happen, I'd have been falling over laughing. Unfortuanately it was happening to me, and not so much fun. I was actually the biggest nit at the table by far, and to get LRR that frequently is pretty absured really. In the end I just had to wait and ended up ninja shortstacking untill the blinds pwned me. The table was me, 1 decent young kid and a bunch of idiots clicking random buttons in 10 handed no ante. They had no idea, but hey, those LRR got me. I actually never had starting stack the whole tournament.

Online superstar mement_mori is currently staying with me, as he's been bored and wanted to play a UKIPT (dumbass). Anyway since he's in the country and can free accomodation here, he's playing online poker with me and grinding the GUKPT London. Assuming I don't make day 2 of this 6-max, I will take Wednesday off and then play the £1.5k on Thursday. Mickey pointed out that my last 2 live cashes were for 9th place and 7th place, so I assume 5th is the most likely next cashing position.

March MADNESS

Ok I am definitely looking forward to it. I've watched absolutely loads of NBA the last few weeks so I'm all about basketball right now.

Febuary didn't go so well. I didn't grind super hard, but decently and just lost a lot.

March is actually off to a good start. I lost HU in a tournament yesterday, but I'm not so disppointed since I played relatively bad the whole session and somehow just decided to win like 10 AIs in a row. Oh that's how it's done.


This month the only live tournament poker I'll be playing is the GUKPT London series. I'm not so much into the sides, but do plan to blast some time in one or two. I have had the urge to play live cash recently, probably because of all the losing i did online in Feb,but probably not the worst idea just before playing some live tournament poker. UKIPT Manchester is happening, but the buyins are too small to justify going, and online is pretty hot right now. Ongame is currently running their 'big' series online and and it's mostly no limit texas holdem (whihc is good for me!).

I had planned to play around 50k hands/month of cash for 2011. So far I'm very close to zero. I plan to rectify this a little but probably... wishful thinking. As added insurance for having a good month, I plan to do more exercise in March than I did int he whole of 2010. as soon as I can figure out what to do exactly....


 anyway best of luck at the tables!

Feb 2011

Pretty much the nut low start to Feb. Doing badly online, as has been the trend unfortuanately for too long now.

I just arrived back from France the other day, having busted FPS Paris. I had planned to play the WPT 5k euro in Paris at the same time, but in the end decided I just wasn't super up for it. Usually I'm pretty much raring to go, but not this time. I also didn't expect it to be the softest tournament, although I often do more than reasonable in 'tougher' live fields.  I think it's just a lot of variance though, as I've really struggled to pick up chips on softer tables.

FPS Paris was much the same although I do think I had one of the worst seats in the room for 1b. Some of the players on my table were reasonable, but many were pretty bad. The only thing that wen't right for me was winning a flip for about 20bbs apiece at 150/300/25 with QQ vs AK. Obviously we all started with 25k in chips, and after winning this ot I was back to just below this mark... I wasn't pleased with my bustout hand, but it wasn't rediculous. I ended up 3-bet jamming a T high FD into A high FD ~38bbs deep on the flop.

At least some positive things can be found in a bad trip. I managed to go to the Louvre for the 2nd time in my life but the first time actually being able to see the museum because last time we arrived slightly too late. I also got a much better grip of the metro system. I''ve also now figured out why I've never managed to get the hang of it, it's because there are no signs for metro stops, just random stairs that look like they should lead to underground parking.

As I post this, its 9am in the UK and I should get some sleep. Arsenal host Barcelona tonight in the champions league and I'd better get some sleep before I go.

Welcome to my new blog!

It has been almost 2 years since I've tried to maintain a blog. I really enjoyed the previous one, although no promises on how regular the posts come in. My previous blog can be found here.

Since then I've spent most of my time playing poker. I spent a year as a sponsored pro for PKR.com, and most of the 2 years grinding tournament poker both online and live. I would assume most of the following blog starts out with coverage of this. There are a lot of specific things that I can remember happening since my last blog, but it would be way too much effort to try and recap them all.

I hope to recount as many of them as possible here.

andrew