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!