Ferrari's Poker Blog

Another Year of University Ends ...

2006-06-26T00:13:00.000+01:00

So I finished my 2nd year at University on friday. Bit of a relief to finally have exams n shit out of the way. Man that gets stressful at times. Now its time to concentrate on playing some poker. I've been saying it for the past 6months, but it hasn't happened. Without the distraction of housemates and general uni life now though, I've got no excuse not to play. I just couldn't find the time or will to play this past 9months.

Since my last post, which seems (and is) ages ago now, I played on and off for a week or so, then haven't played at all since. That's almost 2months without poker. Actually, Im off on holiday Tuesday to Bulgaria and don't return till 4th July, so that will make it 2months without any poker. I reckon thats got to be the longest I've gone without playing since I took up poker a good 5 years ago. I don't intend to play 24/7 or anything once I'm back from holiday, but I certainly need to play a lot more than I have this past 9months (not exactly a hard task)! Time to build the bankroll back up a bit I think. Uni life has meant its taken quite a hit recently, too much spending and not enough earning! The numbers just haven't been adding up. Just like everyone else thats made money from poker, I spend it way too fast. When I was making good money I would spend it almost as fast as I made it. Recently I've still been doing the spending, but without the earning. Not good for the bankroll in the slightest.

My last post I made was a bit of a whinge about not getting my fair share of luck, and I said I would keep records of how I go out of every tournement to really see for myself what was going wrong! Well I did keep records for the week or so I played after that post (before taking the 2month break). I never actually got round to properly sitting down and working out all the numbers, plus I hadnt exactly gathered enough information in just a week, but suffice to say it wasn't a great week and from just glancing over the records I could tell things weren't going my way. I was going to carry on from where I left off with that, and keep further such records, but after noticing a comment left on my last post that it could have more negative affects on me than positive, I don't think I'll bother. So I've had a 2month break, and now its time to start again with a clean slate. If I start keeping records again of how I'm going out of each tournement, it will just put me back in the negative frame of mind I was in before.

Anyway, this was only intended to be a brief update to say that poker is definately gonna be back on once I'm back from holiday! So I hope to post more regularly in the near future.....

When Will This End...

2006-04-29T01:55:00.000+01:00

It feels like pure torture at the tables at the moment. I know this is starting to sound like a broken record, and everyone goes through it, but if I can't win at the moment, and I'm going to make a post here, what else is there to say? Maybe some people enjoy to hear that other people are going through a bad run anyway, so they know it's not just them.

Well this 2 month long "torture" is starting to test my patience. I just can't win for shit and I've got to admit it is getting to me. I'm not really losing money, I'm just not making the kind of profit I feel I should be. A couple of hundred quid profit for a months worth of £60 6pak's I can't really class as "going to plan". This following on from a £2k loss the previous month. However, to make sure this isn't just selective memory on my part, and to prove to myself that the reason I'm not winning at the moment is just because I'm running awful, I'm going to start keeping some records.

I think the best way to measure how lucky I'm getting in 6paks is to see how I'm fareing in the pre-flop all ins. Of course there are many many other factors, but I can't really measure them as easily. However, I can easily just write down on a notepad every time I'm all in pre-flop; what hands im up against and if I win or not. This is where I feel I'm getting unlucky at the moment, at the business end of the 6pak's, so I think it will be interesting to see the stats.

So next time I post on here, If I'm still not winning money, instead of just blaming it on me "thinking" I'm not winning anywhere near my fair share of 50/50's, 60/40 shots, etc, I'll have some figures to back it up. Of course I hope thats not the case though, and instead I manage to report back about how fuckin lucky I've become :)! To be backed up by some amazing 50/50 win-rate and a hefty chunk of profit as a result!

If I report back that I'm winning more than my fair share of 50/50's, 60/40's, etc, but still losing, then I guess I'll have to think up some other excuse, rather than keep using this one! I mean, it couldn't just be that I'm playing bad and actually have no edge over the other players, surely not?!

Weekend Standard of Play

2006-04-22T18:41:00.000+01:00

Until today I haven't had a chance to play at all really since my last post. But I just had to make a quick post about the standard of play I'm seeing at the moment. A few weeks back when I was struggling to win (and I still am), I was starting to think... maybe I just don't have much of an edge anymore and everyone's getting better. I was starting to question if theres still decent money to be made for me in this game. I soon realised how stupid this was, as I still see just about as much stupid play as I did a couple of years ago. Instead I now realise it's just been a case of me not exactly playing great poker and running pretty awful.

I think the poor standard is especially emphasised at the weekends, for obvious reasons, when more of the part-time newbies come out to play. Today some of the standard I've seen has been absolutely dire and it makes me embarassed to say that I'm down money this past couple of months with players like these in my games.

The best play of the day, has got to be one of, if not THE biggest pet hate of mine in poker. It's when someone folds they're BB to someones all in during a tournement when they're getting such good odds its absolutely impossible to fold. It really pisses me off, especially if I'm the 3rd man late on in a 6pak and the BB folds to an easy call from the short stacks all in. So many times this has happened and you're the one that goes on to finish bloody 3rd because of the stupid play of the BB. Well this is by far the worst I've ever seen ....

Blinds 100/200

BB has about 4k
SB has almost 2k
Im on the button with just 206 chips (I just lost JJ all in vs the BB's A6 but thats not the point).

I move all in on the button and the SB folds (that fold is bad enough), the BB then dwells for about almost the whole time before folding for the extra 6 chips. Firstly he didn't time out. So of course next thing you think is it MUST have been a misclick. But surely a misclick happens when you don't have the table up and it pops up about half way through the timer when it beeps, and not right at the end of the timer. This player had played absolutely abysmally in the few tournements I had played with him in today. This leads me to believe that it was actually a genuine fold and that he was so new to the game he couldn't grasp the concept that he only had 6 more chips to put into the pot from my all in. Pretty funny from my position, but if I was the other guy I would be livid. Unfortunately I didn't go on to cash, but that would have been hilarious if I did.

When someone makes a stupid fold where they are obviously getting great odds it really pisses me off. Of course this was an extreme example, but it happens so much to less of an extent, and is just so annoying for the 3rd party in the game.

Anyway, time to get back to making money (or at least trying to) off the weekend fish. I just had to share this.

Slacking...

2006-04-15T13:10:00.000+01:00

The title basically sums up what's happened on my part since my last post (which was a long, long time ago). A lot of slacking. The first instance is obviously a lack of posting on here. I don't want this blog to be the case that I only post when things are going well. People that choose to read blog's will want to hear about the high's and low's, not just selected information. So it's time to start updating regularly again.

I've been meaning to update for quite a while, but just haven't got round to it. The longer I've gone without updating, the more I've just thought; "well it's been 3 weeks since I last updated, a few more days won't make a difference". Initially I didn't update because shortly after my last post our internet screwed up at university, forcing me not to play for a couple of weeks. But I've been back home for 3 weeks now, and really have no excuse for not updating sooner. Finally, I've got round to it!

The second instance of slacking is the same old story of not putting enough hours into the game. Well, that's up until the past week, as I've managed to play a fair bit this week. It's been a pretty unsuccessful week, but at least im playing. In fact, its been a pretty unsuccessful past 2 months. This takes me onto my next case of slacking on my part. This time it's my poker game in general. Everyone thinks they're unlucky when they're losing, and I'm no different. I do still feel I've been pretty damn unlucky this past 2 months, but until the past few days I thought this was just about the only reason I'm struggling to win at the moment. My only other reasoning was that theres a couple of decent players that have started playing regularly in my 6pak games. However, a few days ago I noticed I really haven't been playing my "A game".

One of the main reasons why I think 6pak's can be so profitable is because a lot of the players don't put enough emphasis on the need to WIN them, and pretty much forget about playing to cash (unless in extreme circumstances like one player only having a couple of hundred chips left in the final 3). It was a pretty easy concept for me to grasp and I didnt understand how so many players played to cash before going for 1st. Well recently I noticed that to an extent I have been one of these people. I guess this is firstly due to expecting to lose any coin flip I enter, and then also being on a losing streak I was just content with getting SOME money back. Both of these reason's are stupid ways of looking at things, so it's back to forgetting what has happened previously, and playing for 1st in every 6pak I play!

The final illustration of how I've been slacking would be failing to keep records of my results. I wanted to record how I fare over the course of the whole of this year, 1st Jan - 31st Dec. It should be pretty interesting at the end for me to look over, and hopefully useful over the course of the year in other ways. January and February went fine, but since then I haven't recorded a thing. I guess I can't be bothered to total up just exactly how much I'm losing, cause I know it won't be a pretty sight!

So far I've started putting the hours in, I've updated this blog (just need to continue doing so now), and I've noticed what I'm doing wrong at the tables, now I just need to address the final point of record keeping. If I can be bothered, I will go back over my game histories and enter all the results I've missed out. It'll be a pretty long process tho!

Right, I guess it's time to get back to the tables and try to win a 50/50. Quite a task in itself at the moment, so once I can master this, maybe I'll be allowed to win the odd tourney here and there...

February Summary

2006-03-04T12:03:00.000+01:00

£60 6pak Results:

Total Played = 87
Profit = £1908
ROI = 33.23%

Overall:

Total Profit = £1788
Hours played = 20.5
Hourly rate = £87/hr

February was another disappointing month for hours put in. I've decided that this is probably because just as in January everything ran pretty smoothly so I rarely felt the need to put in many hours to win more money. If I won a few hundred quid in the first hour or 2 of playing then I'd be content for the day. So again I'm relatively pleased with the months profit. Well, extremely pleased considering the amount I played. It's just the amount played that is the problem which needs addressing.

So March has started off better. In the first 3 days I've been more dedicated and put in a more respectable 11 hours worth of play already. Surely a good thing. Or not. The only reason I've put so many hours in is due to running bad and refusing to quit, with the mindset that things will surely turn around soon. Just yesterday I played 6paks for 6 hours, winning a grand total of 1 out of 20. Managed to drop almost 15 buyins and amost 1k in the process. I think thats gotta be the most buyins I've dropped in 1 day since I started playing 6paks. Nothing would go my way, but hey thats poker I guess. I've just got the task of turning the month around now. I hate to see that big red figure on my P+L spreadsheet for the month so I'm sure it will be an incentive to put more hours in until it's gone! So the proof is there that the reason I haven't been putting the hours in is because I've been running well and content with profits made. Playing for longer when running bad and less when running well can't be a good thing, so it's something I need to change.

Finally, I just wanted to add something about the ZeeJustin saga that has gone on recently. I'm sure everyone has read tons about it already and is fed up of hearing about it, but it seems I'm in the minority with my view on the matter. If somehow you haven't heard about it, you can read here. Everyone is slating the guy and branding him a cheat, which I guess he is in a way, but I think it has been blown way out of proportion. I'm sure many people have multiple accounts just as he did, which although is breaking the rules, is nothing terribly wrong. It appears he wanted mutliple accounts mainly for Sng's to hide his image which people had managed to adapt their game to. Something I'm sure many do. The problem comes with him entering some Mtt's with more than 1 account. If he doesn't have more than 1 account on the same table then he really isn't gaining any advantage here, as he is paying the entry fee for each 1 just like everyone else. I think it was merely a case of wanting more chances to win big money, than any malicious intent of say chip dumping or manipulating play with different accounts on the same table. If he just intends to play each account normally and disregard the fact he has other players in the tournement also then it is basically just like someone wanting to play 10 different Sng's at once to increase the amount of money they can win in a time period, something he would do.

Yes, what he did was wrong, but I don't think he really realised quite how wrong it was or did it with intentions to screw over other people so I really don't agree with any of his money won fairly being confiscated. I think the most stupid thing of all this, is the fact that he must have known he was taking a risk by having multiple accounts, which was forbidden, but still had so much money spread among them. Finally, how can Party or Stars just take whatever amount he has in his account when caught as a punishment. We don't know how much this is in relation to money he won on the site. If someone is caught for a crime, the courts won't just say, well lets take whatever he has in his bank at the moment as punishment. It has to be fair and relative to the crime committed. Well thats just my 2 pence on the matter anyway. I'm sure many don't see it my way at all, but I feel slightly sorry for the guy as I feel he is just being made an example of to deter others.

Thx for reading and GL at the tables.....

Much Better

2006-02-24T01:16:00.000+01:00

Ok, this is going to be short and sweet because I have to be up in a few hours as I'm off to Prague for a few days, so I need to get to bed. Betfair headquaters have fortunately flicked the switch back on for me. I'm back to winning ways and made a decent profit this week. I probably won't get a chance to play again this month, so my 6pak ROI will probably end as it stands now, which is 33.23%. Even better than last month so I'm pretty pleased.

More detail to come once I'm back from Prague......

Spoke Too Soon

2006-02-20T00:14:00.000+01:00

This past week everything has pretty much been the opposite to last. I'm now struggling to win most 80/20's let alone a 50/50. But hey you gotta take the rough with the smooth I guess. At least my ROI is starting to look a little more realistic.

It all turned basically straight after my last post, starting with last Sunday's tournies. I lasted an impressive 10 minutes in the Betfair £40k gt'd. Great start. So I decide to just enter the stars $500k tourney later, rather than doing a few others aswell. I hadn't entered this tourney for a good couple of months until last week. It always has an exteremely large field, which makes making the FT a real long shot let alone winning the damn thing. But with such big money on offer its worth a shot. Well last week was ridiculous, with a $1.1mill prize pool. That's 5,500 entrants. You've got just about the same chance of winning the world series. Maybe they need to add a regular tourney with a bigger buyin, which would provide more value.

Ok, I wasn't going to add any hand histories from the past week, to try and keep a bad beat free zone as I had been running pretty well in general recently and should have no reason to complain. But I'm in a few £60 6-pak's at the moment and just can't resist...

Level 3 - 4 left - 25/50 blinds - Button (2k stack) makes it 200. Sb (700 stack) flat calls. I'm in the BB with KK and move in for 1.5k. The button calls with A9dd, as does the SB with Q9ss. Last card out is an ace and I'm gone. Of course this kinda thing happens all the time, so it's no big deal. But just an example of how things are running right now. Plus a way to vent my frustration at such a shocking call getting paid off!

Ok, and as we speak, heads up 200/400 blinds. Me 3.1k to his 2.9k. I'm dealt AA in the BB and he min raises to 800. I just call. Flop comes 10 9 3. I check. He moves in with the mighty 10 4 and the 10 on the river cripples me. I guess when things just aren't destined to go your way there's nothing you can do to change it!

Anyway, enough of the bad beats. I just couldn't resist as they were happening to me as I was typing up this blog! This month I STILL haven't managed to put many hours in, despite the fact that I keep saying I will. Well I'm definately putting in this week. How much you make in the long run is basically dependant on how many hands, or in my case tournements, you play. So as I keep saying, but failing to put into practice, I MUST start playing more!!

Running Well

2006-02-12T20:58:00.000+01:00

I haven't managed to put in anywhere close to the hours proposed so far for this month. I guess I just still don't have the poker bug at the moment. However, the few tournements I have played in have brought decent results. Although still a pretty small sample, I've managed to get my ROI for 6pak's in 2006 up to 39.43% now. Noteably I've got almost 3 times as many first places as second's, which I guess is what has accounted for this ROI. This must mean that I'm winning most of my 50/50's at the moment. Unsuprisingly I hadn't noticed this and was actually thinking I keep getting screwed over in the final few until I noticed this stat. An obvious case of selective memory. Of course when the shoe is on the other foot I can recall every 50/50 I've lost in the past week. I'm sure everyone does it. When things are going well you just assume you're getting your normal quota of luck which you deserve, but when things go wrong its unbelievable bad luck on your part. Anyway, long may this "lucky streak" continue.

I'm planning on playing a few of the sunday biggies tonight. Well I'm already going in the Sunday40k on betfair and will almost definately play the Stars $750k too. Whether I bother with any others or not remains to be seen. I'll be trying to rack up a few more 6paks at the same time and hopefully keep my ROI up at a ridiculous level. Although of course I know as soon as I have actually recorded a decent amount of 6paks the figure will be no-where near where it's at now. Until then ....

January Summary

2006-02-07T16:13:00.000+01:00

Back around christmas time I was sent a new P+L spreadsheet by someone off the betfair forum. It's a lot more detailed than the one I set up myself a few months back and after a few adaptations is pretty much perfect to record accurately what I need (if anyone wants a copy just ask). I definately intend to keep track using this spreadsheet for the whole of this year. I started to do so back in september last year but that only lasted a month. This ones quite a lot easier to use than mine was though so hopefully as it's less effort I won't get complacent this time.

Onto January's records...

£60 6pak Results:
Total Played = 69
Profit = £1296
ROI = 28.46%

Total Profit = £907
Hours played = 19
Hourly rate = £48/hr

So nothing special happened in January. But I was pleased with the profit made from the few hours I did manage to get in. I think this ROI is pretty high for 6paks, but I'm not really too sure cause I have never really worked out my ROI before. Of course my sample so far is tiny though so only time will tell. If I can carry on this way though while playing a lot more then I should be able to turn in a pretty tidy profit.

Time to put the hours in!

2006-01-29T02:20:00.000+01:00

Just a short post. I've just finished my 5th and final bit of coursework for uni! That was 3 weeks of hell and I can actually resume my life again at last. This means its time to put in the hours at the tables like I promised myself I would. Looking back at January's records I've played for a grand total of 15 hours this month. Many times I've had single sessions longer than that! If I want to achieve my goals I need to be making at least £2.5k a month on average and this isn't going to happen if I don't put the hours in. So I'm looking to play nearer 100 hours this month.

Hopefully there will be a few more regular updates to come now that I should be playing a lot more...

2006 Goals

2006-01-17T02:45:00.000+01:00

I did want to try and make posting on this blog a regular occurence again, but just recently I haven't had the time to or really had anything to post about. This is because I haven't had a chance to play recently due to tons of coursework I've had to do at university. I've still got plenty more to do until the end of the month... so no more poker till then. After that it's time to put some serious hours in!

Right, so here's my goals for 2006:

Make at least £30,000 online
Qualify for another $10k+ satellite package (although it may be hard to find one I'll be available to go)
Exceed my biggest tournement payout (currently £3700)
Play live more regularly (probably only not even 10 times last year)

I decided to set myself the same financial goal as what I managed to achieved last year for a couple of reasons. I can't exactly set myself targets lower than what was achieved in 2005 because that would be too unambitious. But this year I think I'll be able to dedicate even less of my time to poker than last. I'm still a student at university, and as of around July time I should be working full time for my placement year of my course (something I'm not looking forward to - but something I've gotta do). This means for the entire of 2006 I'll either be studying or working full-time and unfortunately poker will have to try and fit in somewhere. This is in contrast to this past year where I had a 4 month summer break and not too much work to do. So if I can achieve similar results to last years I'll be happy.

I doubt I'll really have much to post about for the rest of the month as I'm still bogged down with plenty of coursework. Once thats out of the way it's all go on the poker front. So until then...........

2005 Summary

2006-01-03T00:00:00.000+01:00

I was meant to make this post a bit earlier than this but haven't been able to get round to it. Had other things to sort out the past few days. Me and a few mates from back home decided to go to Nottingham to celebrate New Years Eve this year. We turned up at my house there to find out it's been broken into for the 2nd time in 2months -not a good start! About 800 quid worth of my stuff nicked. Top this off with 2mins after we get into the house some chav little shit comes up to our kitchen window in the dark and makes stupid noises scaring my girlfriend, when she tells him to fuck off we find a broom handle thrown through our window. So now I find myself on the phone to the police to report two different matters and end up spending the next couple of hours with the police. Great stuff. Stupid fuckin' chavs.

Anyway back to what this post is meant to be about, a summary of the past year. At the start of it I couldn't have really hoped for it to go any better than it has. I started the year with just a couple of grand as my bankroll after losing just about all of the £8k roll I had previously worked up. So I wasn't in such good shape when 2005 started. Around April time it all happened though and I went on a great run multi-tabling $20/40 LHE tables. Over the course of 2months I won a good £20k -this was helped out with a few big pots in PL Omaha. Once the summer came around I was still running good but just stopped playing so much, so of course the profits dried up too. Apart from winning the Carribean Poker Package and coming 3rd in the 35k Gt'd for £3000 my summer didn't really go so well. I endured a downswing of £7k or so in LHE over the course of a few weeks and pretty much gave up on poker for the rest of the summer after that. Since going back to uni in October I've made a pretty slow profit, making about 2-3k a month but spendning it just as fast so I find myself with the same amount of money in the bank. I know in 2006 I need to put a lot more hours in like I use to.

To summarize my achievements of 2005 have been as follows:

Made 30k profit + £4k rakeback
Qualified for Carribean Poker Classic ($10k Package)
Biggest Tournement Winnings: £3700 winning $100 freeze-out on Stars (followed by £3000 for 3rd in Betfair 35k Gt'd)
Biggest Pot Won: $7,500'ish (don't have the exact figure to hand) in PL Omaha stakes too big for me

So overall the year has gone great considering poker isn't meant to be a main source of income for me being a student. Although being happy with how the year has gone, I'm not too pleased with the last few months of it. Back in July I was running great and just wish I could have kept the momentum going a bit more. I know back then I was rushing and can't expect to keep it up all year but I think I could have done better to come out with more profit than I have since.

So that wraps up 2005, I'll soon post my goals for 2006 ......

CPC Main Event

2005-12-29T14:13:00.000+01:00

Right, in my last post I said I would make a post on the Main Event so here's a brief summary. Well I only lasted about 3 hours so it has to be brief really. We had 6000 starting chips (smaller than I anticipated) and a 1 hour clock. Here's how it panned out with a few key hands:

Level 2 - Blinds 50/100. Utg makes it 300, 2nd to act makes it 800, I'm next to act and look down at JJ. Maybe in later positions I would get involved here as both these players seemed to be giving quite a lot of action, but in this situation I decide to muck. Flop comes down J22, great stuff, and theres a bet and raise! Turn is a blank which they both check. River is 10 and also brings a flush. First to act moves all in and after a 5 minute dwell the other passes, showing his QQ. Gutted I couldn't have been let in this one a bit cheaper. A great chance to amass some chips gone begging.

Level 2 - On my BB its folded round to SB who min raises to 200, I call with J10 and we see a flop of 289, he bets out 200, I make it 600 and he calls. Turn Ace which he checks, I'm thinking surely the turn can't have helped him so fire out a 1k bet which he calls, now I'm in trouble. River 9, now he checks so I don't think (hope) he has it and bet 1.2k into the 3.6k pot hoping to look like a value bet. The guy started saying how this was "so sick" and that he couldn't believe the river. He was talking himself into folding, but took quite a while to do so. Finally he did and showed A2 (2pr on turn) saying he couldn't beat either my ace or 9 because he now didn't have any kicker. Of course I told him I had the 9 and said unlucky. I think he should have check raised me on the turn really, but thankfully he chose not to.

Level 3 - Blinds 100/200 - Sitting with 7.5k, now seems to be a good time to bluff away most my stack. I make it 700 from UTG with QK, just the SB calls. Flop comes down 227. He checks I bet 1100. He now makes it 2200, and has around 4k left behind. I move in deciding he's either making a move on me or has the 7, and he should fold just about anything believing my utg raise for something big. I didn't think he would play 77 so fast, so really couldn't see him calling my all-in, and if he does I could still have outs. It was a fool-proof plan! Money in the bag. Or not. He calls instanly and I'm in trouble when he flips A2. I guess he called my pf raise because they were suited and he had good position on me from the SB?

Level 3 - 600 chips - Very next hand my BB and its folded round to SB who asks me how many chips I have but then decides to just make up. I have 7T and decide to see a flop as I think he'll call my all in. Flop comes 677 and he moves in. Of course I call and he flips 79. Turn is a lovely 9, and despite the small amount of chips at stake it looks like I'm going out to a bad beat. That is until the miracle 10 on the river and I'm back in it!

Level 3 - 1200 chips - 2 hands later I look down at AA, my chance back in. Utg limps, next to act makes it 800, I move all in and both just call. Great chance for a triple up now. Flop comes down Qxx all diamonds, I look down hoping to see a beautiful Ace of diamonds, but she isn't there, I'm in trouble. First player checks, original raiser bets half the pot and makes him fold. Cards face up and all he has is AJ with the J of diamonds. Next card is a diamond and I'm gone.

Overall I didn't play great, or think I played too bad, just wasn't my day. Of course a great experience though and one I hope I get the chance at again. I hope to try satellite's for a lot more events like this in the future, just a shame I've got a couple of years to wait before I can have a shot at the WSOP ones! Until then, more events like this are hopefully on the cards.

Hope I didn't bore you too much with my report of a disappointing CPC attempt and good luck at the tables to anyone reading this.

BIIIIG CATCH UP !!!!

2005-12-29T13:08:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I've got lazy over the past month or so and not bothered to update this blog. This has been due to nothing special to report on, my lack of desire for poker, and just general laziness on my part.

I say I've had nothing special to report on, but I guess going to the Carribean Poker Classic is worth a mention! Obviously I didn't win the thing or I'd have been ranting and raving about it way before now. Other than the Main Event I didn't bother playing any poker -I was too busy doing my load in the casino! With the girlfriend with me she was much happier sitting on the slots with me than being bored while I played hours of poker so that's what I did. Financially not such a good idea as of course the house always wins!

The Main Event itself I only lasted about 3 hours in. I won't bore you with the details now but if you want to read about what happened I'll make a seperate post about it after this one.

Since returning from the Carribean I haven't played much. I've probably only had about 5 poker sessions, which isn't really good enough. I did win a couple of grand playing my old favourite Limit Holdem the week I got back. I made a promise to my uni flatmates that for the rest of term 25% of whatever I won during the day would be the nights drinking kitty. So over the past few weeks I barely played and spent quite a bit of any winnings I did make. Had a few bad sessions at limit since winning in the first week back, so I've decided no more Limit Holdem for me at the moment. The $20/40 and $30/60 tables have got so aggressive it's just a lot harder to beat than it was 6months ago.

I've decided I really need to start grinding out winnings again and play a lot more. So the last couple of days I've gone back to 4-tabling £60 6pak's. This seems quite small as at one point I was playing the £300 6paks but I've decided for now I'm best off building up my money doing this, and its the definately the safest option as I'm sure if I play many of these I can make good money again. I just need to put the hours in!

I've got a lot of coursework due in the middle of January at uni and I don't have a clue what any of it is on, so until that is out of the way I won't be able to put 2 many hours in, but once it is I plan to get back to the old ways and play at least 20 hours a week. Time to grind out some decent money.

Over the next couple of days I'll hopefully do a bit of a 2005 review and 2006 goals kind of thing like I've seen on most other blogs.

If anyone's reading I hope you've had a great Christmas and enjoy the new year!

2 Days and Counting...

2005-11-23T11:30:00.000+01:00

So in 48hours time I should be on the Private Poker Jet on my way to the Carribean to play in the CPC :)! It really has crept up all of a sudden and I can't wait to get out there now. I'm sure this will be a great experience. There should be plenty of things to keep me busy out there so I'm just looking to enjoy myself for the first few days. I'm not sure if I'll bother playing any of the pre-events yet or not. I'll just have to see when I'm out there. I think I'll be more interested in going on some of the trips I have read like a catamaran cruise and scuba diving. Whatever I do I'm sure it will be great.

I still haven't played much poker recently. I just really haven't felt like playing at all. Plus theres the fact that a mate bought Fm2006 recently and has got me totally addicted which doesn't help! Not my fault, the game really is just way too addictive. Of course barely playing over the last couple of months isn't exactly great preperation but hopefully it won't make a difference and I can still perform out there.

I'll be hoping to update on here while out there but if not I'm sure there will be a pretty long trip report to come once I'm back, and hopefully something pretty special to report on ;)! I think Ben is planning to post a trip report on the Blonde Poker Forum most days and I might have a bit of an input on it myself too so check it out if you're looking for any updates.

Wish us luck :)!

Evening's Results

2005-11-13T22:07:00.000+01:00

Right so this update is being posted a little earlier than I had originally hoped. 10pm can't mean a good result.

I played the $100k gt'd rebuy on Betholdem first. This was going well, sitting around 30th of 600 or so entrants after an hour. I then decided to make a move on someone, check raising the minimum on an ace high flop when I had put someone on a high pair like J's or Q's. He had raised my 55 limp pf. I thought if he had AK/AQ he would raise me back to see where he was or move in. I then moved on the turn but he couldn't let go of his A10. I was still around average stack though. This was until I got them in against the same guy with AA, his 88 tripped up and I'm gone.

Over to the Sunday35k on crypto. Never got a stack together here so theres nothing to report on, can't even remember an exciting hand.

I had planned to play the Pokerstars $500k gt'd but decided to unregister from this at the last minute. Turns out I'm just not in the mood for playing poker at the moment and I really couldn't be bothered with it. I've totally lost the desire to play at the moment. Not quite sure why, but I think I want it back otherwise money will soon dry up at the rate I'm spending it!

Hopefully St.Kitts will get me back into the swing of things. I will need to play a bit before going though. I mean its hardly ideal preperation to barely play a hand for the entire month before. It would be even better if I could get myself down to Notts Gala over the next couple of weeks for some live practice. I had planned to play live every week this year at uni, but it just hasn't happened. Not even once down the Gala. Too lazy for my own good.

Just About Recovered......

2005-11-13T18:45:00.000+01:00

Ok so I've chilled out a bit now since the incident on wednesday night. I may have sounded a bit over the top but I do try not to let poker get to me too much .... this time however it really did as there was nothing I could do about it! Not a great feeling.

Anyway, thats in the past now. I haven't played since then. I didn't really think it would be such a good idea to hit the tables with the frame of mind I was in. So I've waiting till tonight where I'm going to play a few of the biggies. I guess it will be Stars, Betholdem and Betfair. I want to play in the big multi's on a few other sites but just haven't got around to making the accounts. I've got accounts at both Party and Pacific which I've managed to lose the details for. I think the biggies on both these sites are pretty good so I really need to get active accounts going again on both of them. I guess I'll look around and see what other sites have to offer.

Hopefully I'll have something exciting to report back on later tonight!

I'd also like to congratulate Ben on qualifying for the CPC tournement which I'm also going to in a couple of weeks time. He's had a tough time of things on poker over the last year but with things turning around it looks like he could be getting his break.

Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck FUCK !!!!!!!!

2005-11-09T23:27:00.000+01:00

Fuck I'm in one hell of a bad mood. No bad beat, no suckout, just bullshit internet.

Ok so tonight I decide to play a few of the evening tournies for my 1st time in a couple of weeks. I enter the following and at 9:15pm find myself in the following situations in each....

Betfair 15k gtd -- I'm in 5th with 100 or so remaining, so going pretty strong. Top 30 paid, £4.2k to 1st.

Pokerstars $100 rebuy -- 40 or so left and I'm about 16th . Top 18 paid with 1st getting $13k.

Betholdem $100 rebuy -- I'm around 8th with 30 or so left.Top 10 paid, winner gets $7.5k.

So to sum up I'm in pretty good shape in all 3 tournements. Then what happens ... My internet connection goes down for 45 minutes !!!!

I manage to get a mate to play on Betfair for me after about 20mins, but he didn't have the other sites on his computer. So I phoned up my girlfriend and told her to rush round to my house at home (5mins away) so she could play the other sites. In the meantime I get my mum to load up the computer and get the sites up. She manages to but she doesn't understand and I can't get her to do anything over the phone for me -not her fault of course though albeit I was getting a bit angry at the time when she couldnt move me all in as I was telling her to.

So my girlfriend finally turns up at my house. She has only ever played on Betfair so I struggle to get her to do what I want her to while she is at the helm. On Betholdem as the blinds have shot up I have just 3 BB left in me when she gets control. I'm out the very 1st hand she has control as I get her to move all in with J5, its a coin flip but no good.

Over to Pokerstars, a slightly slower structure means I'm not in such bad shape on this one. Very 1st hand I get her to move in from the big blind with J9 after a few limpers, 1 caller with 48 for some reason and I hold up. So I'm just about hanging on with 25 left. 18 paid. I struggle over the phone getting her to do what I would do. Like for example someone raises my SB when I have JK. Being a bit short still I would normally move in, but while trying to get her to describe the situation over the phone to me I time out and the chance goes begging!

All of a sudden internet connection comes back and I get back in control with 22 left and me in 20th. Folded round to me on the button 1st hand so I move in with K4 as you do with just 7 big blinds left. Big blind decides to call with 67, fair enough, now time for a bit of good luck to make up for the unfortunate situation I found myself in. It wasn't to be and I'm out 22nd. Gutted.

So over to Betfair, I now get control back off my mate and find myself in 30th of 60 left. I'm not happy with anything worse than 5th given the mood I find myself in so I'm willing to put it all in the middle a lot if need be. Well with an 8k stack and 200/400 blinds, the sb min raises and I move in with 47. He had a 6.5k stack himself and couldn't bare to part with the 800 he had in the middle so thought it warrented calling his final 5.5k or so with K9. What a great call. No suckout for me and I'm short. Move in with 66 and lose to J9 and thats me done in 45th.

So all 3 tournements no payouts. Ok so if I fucked up all 3 tournements fair enough I would be pissed off, but this feels 10 times worse. I was going strong in all 3 with a fair bit of $$$$ up for grabs and walk away with fuck all due to no fault of my own. Really doesn't feel good. I just felt so helpless while the internet was down, there was absolutely nothing I could do and I could just see my stack being helplessly decimated in all 3 tournements.

No more big tournements till I find out what fucked up the internet and get it sorted. I can't bare to have this happen again. So cash games it is if I must play. Although the mood I'm in right now you couldn't pay me to play poker.

Rant over.... :)

It's Been A While ....

2005-11-09T02:02:00.000+01:00

Ok so I haven't updated for quite a while. This is mainly due to the fact I've barely played over the last couple of weeks. I just really haven't been bothered about sitting down to play. Other than the Betfair CPC Freeroll on Sunday I think I've only played once since my last update, and that resulted in a £500 loss so nothing great to report on there :)!

A mate of mine bought Football Manager when it came out and although I didn't play the previous one, he's got me addicted to this one which has contributed to my lack of poker. It's 2am and I'm a bit bored though so I'm gonna play a $150 freeze-out on stars which starts in 10mins or so. Hopefully I'll be posting another report on the blog in just a few hours time reporting on a decent win!

On a side note a mate, Rupert, last week managed to qualify for the Carribean WPT to be held in January. So congratulations to him for that and good luck to him out there!

PokerStars Win

2005-10-24T22:46:00.000+01:00

Ok, so a few days ago I mentioned my biggest win in a multi so far which took place. I haven't had a chance to post details until now as I've been busy over the weekend. I reckon I've forgot most of what happened by now, its all a bit of a blur. So here it is, as best as I can remember....

Just under 300 entrants and I start off pretty well, quickly getting myself into top 30. From then on nothing spectacular happened and I just managed to stay around 30th by gradually building my stack along the way. I hadn't got involved in any major pots until the last 50 when my lucky moment of the tournement takes place:

Serial raiser does his usual 3xBB from late position and I've got 22 in the SB, he's raises about 1/4 of my stack and has about 1 and a half times as much as me. I go for the re-steal but run into KK. First card is the 2 and I'm up to 5th or so thanks to a lovely outdraw :)! Boy do they feel good to be on the delivering end of.

I stick around 5th place or so until we get to the final 30 when something strange happens. About half the players start sitting out. Some awful connection problems which fortunately I wasn't on the receiving end of. Those of us still playing rarely get involved with each other, as slowly some of them start to get their connection back. But still 1/3 of the players are sitting out which makes it pretty easy to make the final table with a just above average stack.

Final table starts and 2 unfortunate soles are still disconnected. Poor buggers. Well this means not too much action takes place until one is ante'd out and the other manages to get back on. So we're down to 8 and it gets going.

Almost every time I raise the guy to my left who I think was second CL cold calls me. Very annoying. But despite missing most of the flops I still managed to take the pots down there and then, bit strange from him. Guess he was just waiting to nail me for my whole stack.

Sitting in 3rd, with 6 or 7 remaining, I raise utg with AQs 3 x BB and he does it again, cold calls me. Mid position player then goes all in for not even double my raise. Straight away I'm clueless as to what to do. I've got a cold caller, and then a re-raise all in which isn't big enough to really push us off our hands so can't be a steal. Although I can easily be dominated, I'm quite happy to pay to see the flop, but just don't want the cold caller to re-raise me all in. One of the later player disconnects and they get 240 seconds to re-connect. So I'm sat here for about 5 minutes trying to decide what to do. My first instinct was to muck it, as the re-raiser is most probably stronger than my AQ. I then think I should re-raise all in to isolate myself with him, hoping he has a lower PP, and on the basis that cold caller should fold as I know he doesn't need anything special to call my raises. I finally talk myself into just calling the re-raise, and pray cold caller doesn't come over the top. Looking back on it I'm thinking this may not have been the right move. I definately had too long to think about this one! Well I called, strangely cold caller mucks, and to my delight I'm up against AJs. I flop the flush and its all over, I move into the chip lead.

Soon we're down to 4 and I find myself with double anyone elses stack. I can't exactly remember how I got such a chip lead, but I'm sure I took 1 or 2 more players out. So in the final 4 I suggest making a deal. Two of the other players are interested but the shortest stack wasn't responding. Either foreign and couldn't understand me or just ignorant, I'm not sure. Well after doubling up one of the other stacks in a race I find myself falling back into the pack and not so comfortable. Fortunately I soon take out the guy un-willing to make a deal and the 3 of us remaining can start talking....

It takes a while to get management to come sort out the deal but finally we do. I was initially trying to negotiate the deal myself, starting high asking for $7.5k, the moving to $7k, and even $6.5k was getting me no-where, so we finally decide to sort it on a chip count. With half of the chips in play I walk away with just over $6.5k, which I'm happy with. I'm new to deals but details of the one we made are below. I added what I roughly remember the chip counts to be to get a rough idea of how it worked out.

Player ................. Payout .......... Deal ............. Chips
Coca919 #1 ........ $7947.50 ...... $ 6547.73 ........ 220k
gmctank #2 ..........$ 5057.50 ..... $ 4520.82 ....... 82k
Ron_G924 #3 .......$ 3352.40 ..... $ 5288.85 ........ 122k

I was happy to walk away from this situation with $6.5k in relation to what chips I had. Seemed like a good deal to me. I went on to win the tourney too just to make the win a little sweeter. Overall, a great success :)!

I'm starting to enjoy playing multi's a lot more at the moment, obviously due to new success I'm having in them. Whether this can last will remain to be seen, but I did have another cash tonight.... 9th in a $100 rebuy for $620. Not such a bad result, but a little disappointing to go out on a race which would have put me right up there, 1st prize was $10k. Hit my top pair on the flop only for him to hit his set on the turn which rubs it in a little. Still, $600 is obviously not to be sniffed at, so I can't complain.

Buzzing ....

2005-10-21T09:28:00.000+01:00

Just managed to win a $100 freeze-out on Stars. We made a deal at final 3 on chip counts. I was CL and I came away from it with a nice $6,500 paypacket. My biggest mutli win to-date, just beating my 3rd place in the Crypto 35k, and I'm well chuffed!

More details to come once I get some sleep .....

Sunday Tourney's

2005-10-19T09:12:00.000+01:00

I played a couple of the big'ish sized tourneys on Sunday. The Crypto35k, Pokerstars $500k and Betholdem $100k. Would have played a couple more sites but it seems I've managed to misplace a couple of their account details during moving up to uni, will have to get the sorted!

Crypto 35k - Out 2nd hand. My AA walked into the monster that is J10. He raised pre-flop, i re-raise from the blinds and he still thinks his hand is good. J high flop and he raises my bet, I just call. Turn another blank and I check-raise him, he calls leaving himself with just 800 remaining of his 2500 starting chips, so obviously now commited to the pot with his obvious Jack. 10 on the river looks like a blank to me and the rest of my chips are all his :)!

Betholdem $100k - This one's a bit of a blank to me. I know I doubled up early but was out by the break with top 2pr vs bottom set which I couldn't get away from, don't remember much else.

Stars $500k - 3,316 entrants. So a big field to get through here for the $170k or so top prize, easy enough. I've done this one a few times before, never with any success what-so-ever though. I can honestly say I didn't get involved in a single big pot all tourney when I had a decent hand. Only found myself all in pre-flop with someone twice the whole tourney that I can remember. First time we were down to 500 or so and I came over the top of someone with who seemed to making a few too many pre-flop raises for my liking with the monster that is 22. Oops he had KK this time, spiked my 2 though which was bloody lucky. This never happens? My lucky day.

Was going pretty well around 25th or so for quite a while, but found myself short after losing a race when down to 80 or so. Got back by going all in the next few hands in a row though with no-one wanting to play with me. Managed to go out 47th I think it was in the end after getting my 67 outdrawn by AQ, all in pre-flop. Lucky fucker. Wasn't exactly short stacked but the blinds were just too tasty. So I pick up just under $1700 for my troubles. Not exactly $170k but a much-welcomed pay packet, especially seeing as the 6pak tables on Betfair have taken a turn for the worse at the moment!

Looks like this month multi's are my source of income. Use to be LHE cash games, last month it was the stt's, this month the mtt's. Ahh well, just as long as money's coming from somewhere I'm happy.

Why?

2005-10-18T05:54:00.000+01:00

Why did I just bother playing the $11 rebuy tourney on Stars with a $45k gt'd prize pool? It started at 3:15am so what was I thinking? Seemed like a good idea at the time! With 1300 or so entrants it was gonna be all kinds of a late night if I planned on going deep. Of course I was destined to go pretty far only to lose a race for a complete waste of time and sleep. Now it's 6am and I'm gonna have to sleep all day tomorrow and miss any lectures I might have otherwise managed to get to.

Ahh well, won't be doing that again in a hurry!

September Results

2005-10-17T17:18:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I've been meaning to publish my results for September for a while. This hasn't been possible until now as I've only just got hold of them after forgetting to get the spreadsheet off my home computer before coming up to university. I'm not too sure if I'll keep doing this each month, I mean I kept really detailed records in September so I may aswell publish the results but for example this month I haven't been recording yet. So, whether or not I carry on to keep detailed records and publish them will remain to be seen. Anyway, here goes:

LHE (6 seaters) -£1,573.27
Ok, so this is where it all went wrong this month. Up until September Limit Holdem has always been my main game and where I have made the majority of my money. Admittedly I haven't been doing well at these tables for the past few months but it's always still been my main area of play for the month. Until this month that is. Finally had enough of the Limit Holdem tables so I've moved elsewhere for the time being. I've always had people tell me I should move to NLHE, as LHE is a mugs game, but I've never really gotten into

NLHE (6 seaters) -£4.35
I've always had people tell me I should move to NLHE, as LHE is a mugs game so I'm told, but I've never really gotten into it. A lot of people I speak to seem to think limit relies on luck too much, which to an extent I do agree to. Seeing as I've decided to stop playing Limit it would make sense for this to be the game for me to move to. Well, that hasn't happened as I still just can't get into it and played a total of 3 very short sessions throughout September. I get bored too easily and find myself just wanting to take a whole stack quickly. Maybe one day I'll get the hang of it.

PL Omaha -£100.06
Of all the cash games, this is the one I enjoy the most, so I often find myself back here when I'm getting a bit bored. I've had pretty good success on the omaha tables on Betfair to-date, with some pretty big pots coming my way earlier in the summer. September started off no different as I was up £800 here but blew it in a couple of mad sessions in the last week. I don't think Omaha will ever be my main game, but I know I'll always come back to it for a bit of a fun. Can't help myself.

6pak's +£2,469 (ROI = 22.85%)
Finally, some profit from somewhere. Previously I've only really dabbled into 6pak's a few times, never quite sure what to make of them. Well, since giving up LHE this has been where I've spent most my time at the tables, and it's gone as well as I could have hoped. Only time will tell if I can consistenyly win here. Long may it continue though as I'm hoping to rely on this game as my main source of income now. My ROI for 6pak's this month was 22.85%. I'm really not to sure what kind of ROI the main earners at 6pak's aim for so I'm not quite sure what to make of this figure yet.

Single Table Tournement's +£1956.8 (ROI = 53.6%)
Just as with 6pak's, I've played a lot of these this month due to basically giving up LHE. I've always played Stt's now and then for a bit of fun and think I've had pretty good success at them. However, I've never really known how good I've been doing at them without record keeping though. Well this month went better than as expected. Throughout the month I thought the 6pak's were going better, but now I have just calculated the ROI for stt's as 53.6%. I hear people talking of a figure around 30% being good for stt's so I'm more than happy with this, although I know I can't expect to carry on quite as good as this.

Multi-Table Tournement's -£482.80
So I didn't get that "big win" anywhere in September, that's yet to come, and didn't get to play as much of these as I would have liked to. Most of this money, well £360 of it, is from not cashing in any of the 3 Sunday35k's I played, so really there isn't much to report on here.

Overall = +£2,265.28
To summarize I'm pleased with how the month went. It was a large improvement on the previous couple of months, which wasn't hard. The cash games went awful, and the sit and go's went really well, so I know where I'm going to continue playing for the time being!

Crypto 10K Guaranteed

2005-10-14T21:49:00.000+01:00

Ok, as mentioned in my previous post I had a pretty decent result in this tournement on Wednesday night. So here's what happened....

After an hour or so I found myself near the top and from then on, without seeing much in the way of decent cards or hitting anything noteably great on the flops I managed to stay in the top 3 all the way to the final table. We probably all think we played a great game when we go deep in tournement, but I'd definately say this was the best I've played in an online tournement.

Once down to the final 8 I look around and see that me and one other are sitting on 200k stacks, and 3rd place has a huge 30k! I know it's far from in the bag but I know I'm now going to be disappointed if I don't place top 2.

Me and the other big stack bump horns quite a few times as we both try to be dominate the table. Whether this was such a good idea or not I'm not so sure. Well he was getting the better of me and when we get down to the final 3 (which didn't take long considering every other player was short stacked), he has a commanding lead with 270k, me 160k or so and the other on 80k.

The CL steps it up a gear in the final 3, often raising pre-flop to such an amount it covers us both all in to call. Either that or he'll raise smaller pre-flop and bet out big on the flop. Just need a hand against him. Then this happens....

Me on 150k and CL on just 300k. He raises 5xBB to 20k on my BB, he is SB. I call with 56hh hoping to nail a flop knowing he will bet regardless. It comes down 47Q and he bets out his mandatory 55k. I now move in hoping he passes but of course knowing I've got the outs if he calls. As long as he hasn't hit the Q here he should the pot should be mine... well he has Q10 and, despite the 5 turn giving me a few more outs, river is a blank and I'm out in 3rd for £900.

Maybe I shouldn't have got involved with the CL and maybe I should? I'm not so sure. Can't complain with a nice £900 for 3rd though either way.

Catch Up

2005-10-13T18:32:00.000+01:00

Ok so since returning to uni I've barely played any poker, that was until I bought a new Desktop a few days back. Now I'm starting to play a bit more again as I don't have to rely on a dodgy laptop anymore!

I joined Titan Poker a few nights ago ready for the Blonde Tourney on there tomorrow. Decided I may aswell try the site out first and entered a $50 tourney. Only 43 entrants but I went on to win it for $1000, so a nice start to the site. I found the tourney real soft towards the end and it was pretty easy/very to pick up pots. I rarely find myself in these kinds of lower runner mtt's but might start to give them a bit more attention.

To continue on the mtt front I had a good result in the £10k gt'd on crypto lastnight, more of which I'll post about later, and I think I'll give the Betfair Forum tourney for players of the BFWCOP a go tonight. That is if I decide not to go out, although I had planned to. We'll see....

Pokerstars Blogger Championship

2005-10-12T17:01:00.000+01:00

Just registered for this...

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 6503469

Blog needs updating and I will do so soon when I get the time to (aka get up off my lazy arse)!

Back at uni ....

2005-10-03T04:20:00.000+01:00

Moved back up to uni yesterday. Looking forward to getting back into the ways of uni life. I'm also hoping to play live a few times over the coming weeks at the Gala in Notts to get a bit of practice in before the Carribean. I've barely played all summer.

Went for a night out in London on friday and couldn't believe what happened... We queued for 2hours for Fabric Nightclub only for me, my mates and about 10 other blokes in the queue to be filtered out once we got to the front and not into the club, all because they had too many blokes going in and had to get rid of some. Two hours of queueing and they fucking wouldn't let us in for no decent reason. The after us they started letting more blokes in so we were just part of the unlucky randoms. Every 5mins or so they would do the same to more guys. Unbelievable! Finally got in at half 3 after going back later on, but it didn't end there as after it finished someone got hit with a hammer outside. It must have been pretty serious as it was on the London news and caused all the surrounding roads to be taped off all next. An eventful night to say the least but not quite what I was hoping for!

Anyway, back to poker... Played the Sunday35k tonight (well lastnight as its now 4am). I spent most the evening in top 20 until I had to lay down KK pre-flop when down to 70 players or so. I think this is the second time I've ever done this. The hand went as follows:

Utg 17k Stack limps for 400 chips.
Folded round to button 11k stack who raises to 2,400.
With a 14k stack I make it 4,800 with KK from the SB.
Utg then goes all in (at this point im thinking must be AA but can I bring myself to let go of KK and wonder for the rest of the tournement)
Button raiser calls the all in. This makes my decision a lot easier as I'm now certain at least one of them must have AA.

Sure enough utg turns over AA, and the button... 99? What a stupid call. Thanks for making it though cause it got me out of a potentionally tricky situation. He spiked the 9 as expected but I'm just glad I managed to get away from that one.

I'm now up and down quite a bit, keep seeing cards like AJ and being forced to lay it down after someone comes over the top of me. Just stealing the blinds is keeping me in it. Raising 23s from the sb when folded round to me gets me into a bit of trouble though and I'm down to 7k. I could have taken the pot on the turn too but stopped firing so pretty annoyed at that one. Next round with blinds at 400/800button raises my BB and I wasn't paying enough attention and just call with A6 (such a textbook over the top all in so I really don't know why I didn't). Flop comes down JJ5 at which point I decide to take a stab at it and move in. Button sitting with J8 makes a dodgy call and I'm out 38th for basically money back. Oops! My own fault though.

I've managed to win my money back that I lost the other day from 6pak's and a bit of omaha but can't post results at the moment. I was hoping to start putting up monthly summaries but I forgot to transfer my spreadsheets from the home computer to laptop to bring to uni so that'll have to wait. Also this laptop runs shit, it can't handle more than one table at once anymore and just freezes up. Might have to pop to PC World tomorrow to get a Desktop for myself so I can get back to good old 6-tabling!

Just Fucked Up!!

2005-09-27T18:37:00.000+01:00

Started mid afternoon and lost my first few £60 6pak's taking a few beats along the way. I've been pretty well disciplined lately and really just stuck to £60 ones solidly. Not this time though, fuck it I moved up to a couple of £90 ones. No good either and I start entering the £120 ones. Despite the fact I use to always play the £120 6pak's a lot and sometimes the £300 ones, I know that this is definatley not within my bankroll anymore so these are big tournies for me now. Well within the space of about 3 minutes I go out of a 90 and two 120's. Losing 3 PF all ins in the process...

AK vs QK. Q on flop enough said.

AKs vs JQs (dunno how he called my re-raise all in, he raises to 300 I go all in for about 1900 he calls?)... flop gives me the king so I think I'm good but he runner runners the flush!

Finally AA vs 88 to round it off. Last card? :)

All 3 of them would have given me more than half the remaining chips, and AK vs JQ was a 4.5k pot. Well I shouldn't have been in these kinda stakes I guess as I was tilting, but still what can you do. After not cashing in 10 6pak's I finally win a £120 one, so that's £540 back. Relief! But then I come 3rd in two more £90 ones and decide enough is enough. The last 1 being AA vs Q5 ... he raises my BB which I just call, we see a 245 flop they all go in the middle and that's that. Right back to the 60 quid games. Lesson learnt.

Quick Update

2005-09-27T03:58:00.000+01:00

MTD = +£2,466.66
YTD = +£25,239.96

Since last posting I've halted quite a bit on the 6pak front. I seem to be bloody good at achieving 3rd at the moment. Fortunately though I've now come into form in the Stt's, especially tonight having won my last four stt's on the trot! Starting to try and play a few more Mtt's at the moment, but I've not been able to play the 15k and 10k gt'd on crypto as much as I would like to, so I'm hoping I'll be able to a bit more when I go back to uni. I still play the Sunday35k most weeks, with very little success though barring the 3rd place a while back. Drew another blank this sunday and can't even remember how I went out so it can't have been that bad. I know I was up to 5k fairly early on. Then without much action for quite a while I remember getting pushed off a hand which I after wish I had moved with. This cost me half my stack and I never really recovered. There's always next week.....

Something Good To Report On...

2005-09-22T17:27:00.000+01:00

MTD = +£1,907.72
YTD = +£24,681.02

Right looking back at this blog this past 6 weeks or so have mainly been a moan about how awful my run has been at the LHE Cash tables. Well now I've got something positive to write about as the Stt's and 6paks have been going really well this past couple of weeks. So far this month in 6paks I have cashed exactly 50% of the time, and won them 25% of the time. As for the stt's, I have cashed in them 43% of the time, winning 17% of them. This has meant I'm now having a decent month and I think as long as things carry on the way they are I'm going to stick to these sit and go tournements for a while and stay away from the cash tables. I feel there is less risk in these tournements and I'm not under such pressure to win big. More of a steady profit.

I will post a report of full results at the end of the month.

I'm Jealous....

2005-09-21T21:56:00.000+01:00

Ok so the WCOOP is over now. But everyone is still talking about this kid Jordan Berkowitz. He's now 18, still not even legal to play poker but through his mums account and his friend's has managed to final table in consecutive WCOOP Main Events, winning this last one! He must be a pretty decent player to have achieved this and i've heard he makes quite a serious amount at the cash tables too. -It can't just be luck. When making a deal in the final 3, being the short stack he said he would take no less than evens because he rates his stack as a lot more against the other guys. Not exactly short of confidence, but comes accross pretty arrogant. I think you would be a bit too in his shoes though, being so young and taking this kind of cash.

Lucky fucker!

Lost my LHE Cash game?

2005-09-20T23:30:00.000+01:00

MTD = +£987.48
YTD = +£23,760.78

At the moment I really can't win at the Limit Cash tables one bit. I'm not having a moan here .. just I'm starting to think why it is I can't. I haven't really played much of it this month yet I've still managed to blow £1.5k there. For the past few years I have constantly made money at the limit tables, but especially so this year. However, the last 2 months nothing I do seems to work and it's been where I've lost all my money. If it weren't for me winnings at omaha, stt's and 6pak's I would be down a lot more these past couple of months. This is just such a change from before when I felt pretty "invincible" at the limit tables and was on a constant winning streak. I know it was a hot streak but things have changed a little too much!

I feel I have been extremely unlucky on the limit tables the past couple of months but this can't be just it -considering its such a change! When I would go through bad patches before I would easily make it back quick enough. But this time it just gets progressively worse, every session is a losing one. I think my limit game must has changed a bit since I've started playing a lot more stt's and 6pak's. I think because when I play limit cash at the moment I always have stt's and 6pak's on the go at the same time. Of course in these tournements, especially in the latter stages where you need to loosen up a lot and even in the early stages you need to be seeing cheap flops with a lot of hands. Now I'm sure some of this style has been passed onto my limit game and that's not a good thing....

If I've got a limit cash game on the go at the same time as other tournies at the moment I've been noticing that without realling giving it much thought I've been calling things like 67o in the BB to a raise just to try and hit a good flop to hit the raiser hard with. Now the majority of the time I'm not going to hit the flop and when I do I'm not gonna get paid off greatly in limit anyway. I know I use to just muck these kinds of hands automatically before to a raise but just because I don't in tournies I've found myself automatically doing the same in LHE Cash. Of course it's ok to mix it up a bit with these kinds of cards now and again even in limit but I definately don't think it's profitable to be doing it all the time. So basically I know I need to stop this and tighten my Limit game back up a lot to back how it was a couple months back. I think the only way to do this would be to not have any tournies on the side for a bit while I play LHE Cash games so I can soley concentrate on playing to the style required for them.

As for other area's of poker for me, it's all going well at the moment and more than cancel's out my LHE losses for the month. So maybe I'd be more profitable sticking to these other area's for a while, especially 6pak's. It's just the fact that I'm pretty certain I'm quite a bit better than average player at the Limit the stakes I play that keeps taking me back there despite the fact I can't win at the moment. It's just the fact that I know I really can make quite a lot of money there. I mean it is where just about all of my profit has been made from playing poker. More concentration as to what I'm actually doing is a necessity tho. It's far too easy to start loosening up your game and hit that call button in the hope of hitting a monster, a trap it seems I've managed to fall into and need to get out of fast!

WCOOP not to be ....

2005-09-18T23:03:00.000+01:00

The WCOOP Main Event is tonight and the prize pool is looking pretty mouth watering. With over a $3.7million prize pool, first place takes home just shy of $860k. Not bad for a nights work.

A while back I had said to myself I would definately do a few of the WCOOP events and certainly try quite a few qualifiers for the main event. Well all of a sudden they're over and I haven't got round to playing in any of them. I guess its partly because of the losing streak I'm currently on meaning I didn't really want to forking out money for any big tournies. A couple of months back I would have felt comfortable buying into a few of the events, but not so much now. Anyway I didn't realise until yesterday that the main event was already just round the corner and I was still yet to give any qualifier a go!

So lastnight I entered the double shootout satellite for around 30 bux. 81 entrants and I needed to win two 9-seaters to get the seat. Anyway all is going well, we're down to 5 or so and I'm chip leader with about 1/3 of the chips in play. I then proceed to lose KK all in vs 88 and 1010, followed shortly by QQ to AJ. This leaves me short and its not long till im out.

Right, so now onto a $30 rebuy event, a bit over 300 entrants. By the time rebuys are over I've won 1 small pot so I start after the break with just the starting amount plus an add-on. I managed to double up once, and from then on just stuck around on average stack through a lot of stealing. Turn's out 7 seats are up for grabs and we're soon down to the last 30 or so. I then get extremely lucky to double up when I find myself all in 99 vs QQ and spike the 9, so I move into around 5th. With blinds creeping up fast I manage to run into AA when trying to steal, which cripples me. After getting some back I run into aces again and thats me done in 13th. A little disappointed to have come so close when I look at what kind of prizes are at steak. Out of 1496 entrants, top 135 guarantee's a payout of almost $4k. Wouldn't mind getting my hands on any part of the prize pool.

Good luck to those taking part in the event but it means I have to settle for the Sunday35k and a payout of £10k tonight. Well, that was the plan anyway until my QQ ran into AJ with a lovely ace last card and that was that.

Also still trying to turn in a winning session at the LHE cash tables (the game I couldn't lose at a few months back), but I'm still struggling to do so at all this month. Looks like being another disappointing month at that game unless things turn around pretty sharpish!

BFWCOP

2005-09-15T18:43:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I went to London in the end for the Betfair World Championship of Poker. I wasn't planning to go until a mate phoned me up telling me I had to be there. I wasn't disappointed and had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. I arrived on the Friday evening and found a few Stt's and Cash games running. I decided to stick to the Stt's for the weekend where I can limit myself more to how much I'm prepared to lose. I don't trust myself so much in the Cash games. Managed to finish the night up and cover the costs for the days drink/food/travel etc.

Onto the Saturday and the £100 Main Event. Me and Ben had planned to get up fairly early and head off to the Gutshot with plenty of time to spare to register early and relax. Well it started at 2pm and due to the late night we had we didn't wake up till gone 1. Relaxed isn't exaclty a word I would use when describing the way we jumped out of bed and scurried off to the Gusthot. Luckily enough it was all running a bit late though and we made it with plenty of time to spare. It finally kicked off at 2:30pm. 10,000 starting chips with blinds of 25/50 and 91 entrants. It looked like this was going to be a slow structure with plenty of play available. Well I started off in the room at the back by itself downstairs, with a broken fan that wouldn't shut up. Great stuff. Everyone seemed pretty tight and cagey for the first few levels with little action taking place and I went into the first break having barely played a hand and on 8,000 chips.

Shortly after the break I managed to double up. A substantial raise before me and I look down to see QQ. I move in and get called by 55, board comes blank and im up to a pretty decent stack. Not much action after that and with a few steals I'm up to around 20k before the table breaks. Blinds are getting pretty big now so it's mainly become all in or pass. I'm not sure if I had the pair or the overcards but a short stack moved all in utg on my BB, I managed to win the 50/50 and was on around 30k when the table broke again and I was moved upstairs to the final 3 tables.

Blinds really are big now, I think they're at 3000/6000 with a running ante of 100 at this point. I wouldn't exactly say I was short stacked either, the blinds really had just jumped up and really were hitting everyone hard now. Folded round to me one from the button and I see 55. I really have to move all in. I get called by the SB with AK and luckily my 5's hold up to put me on around 60k. Soon enough the blinds have taken a few more casualties and we're down to the final 20 and I get moved to yet another table. Blinds are now at 4,500/9000 and after not long I see AQ in the SB. Utg goes all in for around 25k, next to act calls for 15k of it and then its folded round to me. I now have around 50k so its half my stack to call. I think utg would have gone all in with a large range of cards so I move over the top all in. After a long dwell the BB mucks A8, wish he called! Anyway 25k stack turns over A9 and 15k stack 46dd. Flop brings a 4, but still a 20k side pot and most of my chips back as long as no 9 comes, which it does on the turn and I'm down to 25k. A few hands later with the blinds creeping round to me I move in with Q10 and find the SB with AK. No help from the board and I'm out in 17th, same as in Notts! Turn's out the guy with A9, Reactive, went on to win the tourney. Great bloke though, he had every1 rooting for him at the end.

Overall a great weekend and I'm sure everyone that went, including myself, will be looking to go to the next one whenever it is!

Exact records....

2005-09-09T11:46:00.000+01:00

MTD = +£298.24
YTD = +£23,071.54

Yesterday I managed to get Betfair to send me a statement of all my transaction histories since joining the site. From this I have been able to work out exactly how much profit I have made at the tables with them. When I made my previous estimate of being up around £27k when starting up this blog this was made purely by looking at my total deposits and withdrawals on Betfair and didn't take into account bonuses and rakeback received, which I now know accounted for almost £3k of my money. I never use to be able to get the "My Statement" tab to work on Betfair, so all my records were rough due to conversion rates but I now have this working so I can be exact with my records. At the moment my stats are only for Betfair as I don't have any figures at all for my play on other sites. I very rarely use other sites, and I if I do it will be just for large MTT's. I guess if I wanted to do I could withdraw all my money from other sites and then look back at my bank statements for deposits and withdrawals to see exactly how much I have won/lost. But for now I will just be showing my Betfair stats.

At the tables I have managed to keep away from the Limit Holdem this week. Despite it being the game where most of my profit has come from I really can't win at it at the moment and it has been costing me a lot so I'm staying away for a bit. I've been playing a lot of PL Omaha, stt's and 6pak's, which has been going pretty well.

A hand in Omaha that comes to mind is one that I think really just sums up how people over-value Aces in the game. In £0.50/1 PLO I was dealt 8d 9s Td Js utg and raised to £3. Four players then called before the button made it £22.50 to play. Both blinds fold and I call. One of the middle position guys them comes over the top and goes all in for a total of £91. The button calls his remaining £49, and I call too fancying my hand 3-way. I know for sure someone is gonna have aces, but to my delight they both turn them over. I'm up against Ah 6c Ad 7h and As Ac 7c 9d. I don't think I could ask for much better really, both aces with one of them having no suited cards and the other having just 1 suit. I'm not so great with my Omaha odd's but I'm sure I must be at least 50% to win here? I do win and take a £261 pot. I'm not too sure about the move made by the guy in middle position to come over the top all in? I'm still learning Omaha myself but I'm sure I wouldn't fancy a 3-way all in pf with aces, especially as he had no suits at all either.

As for the stt's and 6pak's I've been going pretty well there too. Although one 6pak in particular really did bug me. We were down to the final 3. I had about 2,900 chips, next had 2,200 and the short stack had around 900. Blinds were pretty large at 300/600 and THREE rounds of hands in a row, the SB went all in for 900 chips, just an extra 300 into a 1,200 pot and every time the guy in BB folded. I couldn't believe what I was seeing but I didn't want to say anything as I though it may be unfair on the shortstack. Although of course collusion did cross my mind. I really do hate it when I see players folding for stupidly small amounts like that when someone has gone all in. And to do it 3 times just took the piss. To rub it in even more, the guy that kept folding for 300 chips decides his Q3s is good enough to call all his chips for when I go all in on the button with QK. Of course 3 is last card and I end up exiting in 3rd. Not too pleased to say the least. I'm still not sure if it was collusion or just an awful player, but it really does bug me when I see this.

Anyway... I'm currently considering whether to go to London today or not. Betfair are holding a competition at the Gutshot this weekend and a mate of mine is already there. Not sure whether to join him or not. We'll see....

Quiet Week

2005-09-05T15:33:00.000+01:00

The past week I've been pretty busy and barely played. I think I had 1 short session during the week which left me evens, and then I just played the Sunday35k lastnight on crypto. Was totally card dead so nothing to report on there. So just lost the £120 entry fee for that this week.

Overall I finished August down around £2,500. It doesn't sound too bad considering the amount I have won, but it really is too much for me to be losing at the moment and has left me pretty short. Considering after the first week of the month I was up £3,000 it was quite a swing to handle. Still waiting for my rakeback to come through for the month, which I think I have worked out to be around the £500 mark. This isn't too bad seeing as I wouldn't say I really played much poker last month.

I've decided I'm going to try and make the transition to pretty small stakes NL for a bit and see how things go. I've tried the £2/5 NLHE stakes a few times before as I've always thought there wasn't much to be made in the lower stakes. But I'm almost certainly out of my depth in these stakes which is why I never really stuck at it I guess. The past couple of weeks a mate of mine Ben, who also use to be purely a Limit player, has started playing really small stakes omaha, $25 buyin. He's managed to turn in a really good profit, making well over £500 in this time I think. I never really thought this would be possible in such small stakes, with just a $25 max buyin, but he's shown it is. So I think I'm going to give the 'small stakes' NLHE and PLO a go for a while and see how things go.

I also recently stumbled accross Iain Girdwood's blog. A great read and a good insight into how he has made his way up from small NLHE stakes to now turning in a serious profit on the higher stakes in the space of 18months.

It's Way Too Hot!

2005-09-01T00:56:00.000+01:00

Ok so I went for a rare early night tonight. In bed by half 10 somehow! I went out for a meal for my girlfriend's sister's b-day tonight so when I got back slightly pissed I thought I would be able to sleep early for once. I can usually get into the land of nod very easily when intoxicated. Not tonight though. I think its a mixture of being extremely hot and the fact that poker is playing on my mind so much at the moment. So after a couple of hours of trying to sleep I've had to get back up and load up the computer in an attempt to take my mind off things and stop sweating so much! I know losses are hard not to think about, but over the last couple of days all I've been able to think about is the past few weeks of poker. Especially when trying to sleep. This is definately the worst time for thinking about things, you just can't get them out of your head! It's really playing on my mind and the only cure I can think for it would be to win some of it back. So I'm sat now on a couple of tables trying to do so, although I'm not quite sure this is the best idea. I just keep thinking that maybe I've blown my big chance now as I've managed to lose back a lot of my previous winnings and have found myself in not such a secure situation as I was before. Hopefully things turn themselves around pretty hastily!

Gala Notts £300 NLHE Double-Chance Freeze-out

2005-08-30T13:40:00.000+01:00

Ok I've just this evening got back from my long weekend away in Notts for this tourney. I went up on the Saturday to give the £10 rebuy satellite a go but didn't see any cards and left shortly after the rebuy period. So £325 out of my own pocket it was to be. Structure was 5000 starting chips, 25/50 starting blinds with 40min clock for 1st 3 levels and a 45 minute clock after that. Breaks due every 3 levels, with rebuy's/top-ups/add-on's available up to the 1st break. I was slightly nervous at first at this is my biggest live tourney to date. A few big names about that I recognised. After a few hands I soon felt comfortable and slowly began to build my stack. With 5,000 starting chips I had managed to get to the first break on around 9k which I was happy with. There aren't any noteable hands I can think of.

Soon after the break I got into a hand with the chip leader who had a substantial stack. He was in the seat before me and limped. I raised 4 x BB and it was just us to the flop. I think blinds would have been 75/150. It comes Axx and he bets out pot which is around 1500. I put him on a weaker ace so after a slight dwell I call. Turn is another blank and he bets out 3500 into a 4,500 pot so after a long thought I decide I can't lay this 1 down and come over the top for my remaining 3000 chips. He folds and shows AJ after I show my AK. Turns out river was a jack. Phew. A lot of players would have called my all in and I'd be out. I was now on a healthy stack of around 15k. A few hands later with blinds 100/200 I pick up AA and raise it 800 from late position. Button and BB see the flop which is 986. I bet 2000 into the 2500 pot. Button folds and BB re-raises me all in for a further 3000. I finally reluctantly call which after I am annoyed with myself for as there isn't much I can put him on that I'm beating. Stupid call. His 89 holds up and I'm back down to 9k. By next break I manage to get up to around 17k which I work out is a few below average. I manage to hover around this mark until the next break without seeing much. So to the final 3 levels of day 1 and I was slightly short now on 16k or so with around 38 left when I see AKs in BB. A shorter stack makes it 5k to play so I decide its time to gamble and move in for his remaining 7k. His 99 holds up and I'm now extremely short. Next hand J4s in SB and its folded round to me. I make the only move possible and BB calls. To my delight he shows T4o and I double up. A couple of steals later and I'm back to almost 10k when the final hand of the night is dealt. It's my SB and I see 99. A short stack of 6k or so moves in from mid position and its folded round to me. I can't afford to lay this down so I move in for my 10k. BB calls with AJ, short stack has AQ and somehow my 99 holds up. So I make it to day 2 with around 26k which I'm delighted with and I work out is just below average, and 3rd highest on my table.

So into day 2, and just 24 of us remaining. The prize pool is £41,700, which means of the 91 entrants, 48 of them either topped-up/re-bought/added-on. Winner gets just over £16k and 10th takes just under £1k. Not long in and I pick up AA on the button. To my delight utg makes it 10k to play. Its passed round to me and I dwell for a bit before "reluctantly" moving in. He calls and shows 1010. I hold up and I'm up to around 50k. I'm buzzing quite a bit by now with the thrill of actually having a decent stack. I just need to keep calm and play some good poker. Well so much for that. The very next hand I get JQs on the button and its folded round to me. With blinds at 800/1600 I make it 5000 to play. The same guy I just beat moves in for 10k more. I pass, which I'm not sure is the right move or not. But annoyed with myself for making the raise in the first place. There was just no need against someone who is probably willing to move in with any 2 cards right now. Thats a waste of 5k. A while later I pick up 66 in early pos and decide to limp for 2k. Short stack in SB moves in for a further 7k. So I now have to put another 7k into a potential 20k pot. I decide to go for it hoping he doesn't have the over pair, which he does and his JJ holds up. Possibly another bad move by me and I'm annoyed at myself for letting my stack slip away. I then get involved with QKs vs the chip leader and when the board comes xxJA he takes it and I'm back down to around 25k. I have to make the odd steal here and there to keep my stack up. Then a few started coming over the top of me and I was having to lay down average hands like JK. At about 20k I saw QK and for some reason decided to limp it. I would never do it on the internet so I'm not quite sure why I did here. I had just had enough of wasting 6k when players were coming over the top of me and didn't want to risk wasting too many chips. Rob Yong, with slightly more chips than me, also limped on the button and SB folded so 3 of us saw the flop which was 223 and checked round. Turn brings the king. I check it hoping Rob will fire which he does, for 6k. I dwell for a bit, always knowing I'm putting my chips in as I have him down on a weaker King. I move in and after thinking for a while he calls with K10. River is a 10 and I'm gone. The pot would have put me on about 45k and back into around 5th I think. Instead I'm out 17th. Rob said I played it perfect on the turn and that he didn't really want to hit the 10. I spoke to him after and he also said if I hadn't pulled the "moody" on him on the turn when going all in then he would have folded. I wanted him to call though really if he was on the weaker king as he was just a 15/1 shot at hitting. Ahh well.... until next time.

Also I must mention, I went with a friend, Ben Mayhew, who got extremely unlucky just 3 hands into the tourney. It involved him being all in on turn with 1010 vs K4s on K107ss flop, 7 turn, and the dreaded 2-outer king on the river. What can you do.

All in all, it was a good experience but I am a bit gutted to have gone out the way I did. But I'm sure plenty of others had the same and you've just got to take it on the chin. This was a big tournement for me so getting into the final 10 really would have meant a lot so it's a bit annoying to have got as close as I did and not quite make it.

Update

2005-08-26T15:29:00.000+01:00

MTD = -£2,642
YTD = +£24,358

I haven't played since my last post. I did however just check my poker balance and it wasn't a pretty sight to say the least. I think I may have to lower the stakes for a little while. No matter how much it will pain me to do so. No-one likes dropping stakes and grinding out the pennies.

Off for a big night in London tonight which should help things though... and a few days break from online poker.

What Next?

2005-08-25T04:19:00.000+01:00

Ok it's just got worse and worse. Now I cannot connect with a single flop what-so-ever and when I do someone either has something better or outdraws me still. I'm kinda in disbelief right now as to quite how bad my luck is at the moment. I don't quite know what to do with myself. I'm just gutted. I can see a large chunk of my hard-earned money going before my eyes so quickly while im totally helpless and unable to stop it. Yeah yeah I could have just gone to bed earlier to prevent this happening but you just tell yourself "this is unbelievable, it can't surely carry on, it must turn around any moment now". It didn't turn around and now I just feel awful. I haven't won a hand other than the blinds on either of my 2 tables in at least half an hour now. And I've seen SO many AK/AQ/AJ/QK/JK etc. Just not able to connect.

Now going to bed totally gutted and the mood I'm in right now I can't even bring myself to check my poker balance. It will just make me feel even worse. Gonna struggle to sleep tonight I reckon. There best be something good on TV to take my mind off it.

Fuck when poker is bad it really is BAD isn't it. I know it's great when you win and I do love it. But sometimes don't you just wish you had never stumbled accross it and could just lead a normal every day MUCH less stressful life like everyone else out there. Poker really does take over and dictate your life. If poker is going good ... life is good. If poker is going bad .... well depression sets in and its all you can think about. Ahh well. Rant over. Bed.

Same Shit Different Day

2005-08-25T03:09:00.000+01:00

I hope this doesn't carry on much longer. I know you've got to expect beats but it surely can't carry on THIS bad! Getting outdrawn on every hand I get involved in isn't so fun and definately isn't so healthy on the BR. I only started this evening about 11:30'ish as I've been busy today, yet somehow I've managed to turn what was meant to be a quick session then off for some much needed sleep into a dreadful few hours session. A few hands that come to mind. JQ losing to AA on a perfect 910K flop. Umm .. JJ splitting with J6o on a 10JQ capped flop. Just this minute... I had AT with ace clubs in BB and call a button raise. T56 all clubs flop I c/r he raises back I cap (very aggressive player I'm against). Turn is 8. I bet he raises I call. River Q no club he has J9 with the J of clubs. Hmm interesting. I'm in the exact situation I was in last night. Ive seen an absolutely AWFUL run of cards and beats again and it's making me reluctant to go to bed on such a bad note. As it is I'm still now playing (if you could call it playing, I see it more as donating at the moment) and it's 3:18AM. Hopefully I can make a quick and miraculous turn around and be in bed by half 3.....

Bed Time

2005-08-23T05:51:00.000+01:00

MTD = -£1,315.00
YTD = +£25,685.00

Ok I'm finally calling it a night. Not happy but what can ya do. I guess I shouldn't have let things get as bad as they did tonight, but boy things sure were going badly against me. It's just so hard to stop when you're so frustrated at getting fked over hand after hand. I don't THINK it affected my play, but nonetheless I just probably have called it a night. Maybe this is something I need to learn to do. I've now managed to blow all last weeks earnings in 1 day. Not good. And after how promising the night was looking at one point when I was up over $2000. How things can change.

YoYo Evening

2005-08-23T04:48:00.000+01:00

Right it's now 4:30 am and definately time to call it a night. I should have called it a night MANY hands ago. To start the day off I had an absolutely awful session in £10/20. 500 quid blown in 40mins or so. Hmmm good start. I then gave a couple of tournies a go ... the EPT Barca qualifier on betfair and the 15k gt'd (newly adjusted to £50+5 buyin). No luck in either and there goes another £235.

Next I decide to start a couple of $20/40 limit tables. The players are awful so I know I should walk away with a tidy profit unless I receive some real bad luck. Within minutes I'm up $600 between them. Not a bad start. 15mins or so later and im down $500. Then over the course of a couple of hours I'm back to up $2000. 2 hours later ... and MANY MANY bad beats and outdraws later... back to evens. Not happy 1 bit. As we speak I'm still playing in a desperate last ditch effort to get some money back before I retire to bed. Just flopped a set of queens on QJ3 rainbow flop heads up only for King to come on turn and lose to A10. Now as we speak the SAME player has just killed my flopped set of 10's on 10 9 x flop. He hit his flush. About to hands later sum1 raises my BB from button I call A5 on slight tilt. 24J flop .. im seeing turn on tilt. Yessss its the 3!! Or not .. foe has 56. It gets messy. I'm in slight dis-belief right now. And as we speak ANOTHER river .. A9 won't lay down against my 66 that im betting and rivers the ace. Ok now I'm kinda fuming! Everyone at table is saying they can't believe my luck ... neither can I. I'm now down a LOT. I know I should go to bed but I REFUSE to end the night on this note. I will post again before I go to bed to show how I faired in the end.

1st Cashout

2005-08-22T23:10:00.000+01:00

I made my first cashout/weekly pay-packet to myself today of 5% of my Bankroll as per my new system I'm trying out. I'll be doing this every monday for as long as my bankroll lasts. I started today with £6,500 in my account so the cashout was £350. I won't be complaining if I can sustain a balance around this mark on average and pay myself this amount each week.

Back on Track

2005-08-22T02:01:00.000+01:00

MTD = +£197.00
YTD = +£27,197.00

Today I finally had a good session at the cash tables on Befair. Long over-due it seems. A few days back I was playing a couple of $20/40 tables and through many outdraws soon found myself down $2000. The standard of play on the 2 tables was awful. Usually I get a little worked up when nothing will go my way but this time for some reason it really didn't bother me one bit how much I was down. I just sat there thinking, I know I can beat these guys, so it really doesn't bother me as long as I know I'm getting my money in when in-front. I sat and played my normal game and managed to get back to $500 down before I had to leave. I was pretty pleased with this result and left happy knowing that in the long run I can beat many of these players. Today was the day I had been waiting for. Of course it came with its many bad beats as you always get in limit, which leaves you thinking "I'm up this much, but I really should be up a lot more". Overall though I got a decent run of cards and managed to turn in a tidy profit of $2500 or so.

Sunday nights are of course when all the big online tourney's are about. So I gave a few of the usuals a go.... the Sunday £35k on crypto, $500k on Stars, and $100k on Pacific. Didn't see any cards between all 3 of them, a bust QQ 2nd hand on Crypto was the only decent PP I saw bust and didn't receive anything like AK once between all. Looks like I'll just have to wait a little longer for that BIG pay-day.

On a side-note. I finally got to play my Maxi-Round 3 on Prima. This is after almost 3 weeks of trying to get a table to fill. I managed to finish in the top 4 which gets me through to Round 4 worth $1100. However I think it's going to be even harder still to get the Round 4 table to fill, let alone Round 5 if i get through. I don't think I'll be trying the Maxi-Rounders again after this experience.

Channel 4 Update...

2005-08-18T16:31:00.000+01:00

MTD = -£1,065
YTD = +£25,935

Channel 4 finally got back to me and my mates a few days ago. The news wasn't good but was expected. It isn't going ahead. Their reason? Channel 4 said that legally they didn’t want to be seen to be promoting gambling so they could not do a story about poker. Although the people from Ch4 that met us did say they really had hoped they could have gone ahead with it. We're a bit annoyed that they even approached us in the first place and seemed so keen to go ahead with it to then turn around and say it wouldn't be appropriate. I don't see why they didn't find out if a poker documentary would be suitable or not before wasting our time. Ahh well... I'll just have to wait a bit longer till I can get my shot at 15mins of fame.

On the poker front I haven't really played much recently, just a little session a couple of days ago where I managed to make a couple hundred. I've now put £5k into my account as I suggested and I'm going to treat this as my sole BR and implement the "take 5% out every week to pay myself" system I mentioned before. We'll just have to see how this works out. Hopefully good!

I'm considering playing in the Gala Nottingham £300 NLHE 2-day event on the 28/29th August. It's max 1 rebuy or top-up or add-on. I really can't afford to be spending £600 on one tourney so I would just be treating it as a freezeout. I've never played in a "big" live tournement before. With the biggest I've done being a £30 rebuy. But I really would like to play a tournement of this size and it's pretty perfect for me seeing as I have a flat in Nottingham so hopefully I'll be there.

Back to Reality....

2005-08-16T11:49:00.000+01:00

MTD = -£1,237
YTD = +£25,763

Just under a week ago I had a terrible run over a few days. In total it cost me £4,300. It hurts to think about how much money this really is. When you put it into relation with every day spending it seems so surreal to think that I could lose this kind of money in just a few days. Over the past 6 months or so I really have been on cloud 9, making money way above my own expectations. But after spending a lot of my winnings (I've invested in a house so I can't lose it all like I did before), this £4.3k seems way too much for me to be losing right now in just a few days. If this few days turned into a a couple of weeks I could soon find myself with empty pockets, and I'm not prepared to let that happen. So what next?

After losing this money I wasn't quite sure what to do, in the heat of the moment everyone considers upping the stakes to win it back fast and get it off your mind. I couldn't let myself do this as I'm not prepared to go back to having no money. After what I've experienced over the last 6 months it would be hard to go back to normal. So I need to make sure I do what's right for the long-term and ensure this bad run doesn't affect me anymore than it needs to. Maybe I need to lower the stakes? But it's always so hard grinding it out in smaller stakes after experiencing it higher up. Maybe I need a break from it all? For starters I've barely played over the last 5 days or so since losing the money. I don't want to be chasing my losses, I need to try and put it to the back of my mind a bit more before playing seriously again. One thing I do know is that I definately need better money management...

Since going on my winning streak I've always said to myself that I won't let myself lose much of my money, because I know what it felt like when I lost the £8k I won before. However, losing £4.3k in just a few days, which is about a quater of the money I have I know I shouldn't be letting myself do. So I guess that tells me I need better money management. I heard recently of a system that someone adopts which I might try out. It involves every week taking out 5% of your BR, no matter what. So regardless of whether you've had a great week or an awful week, 5% is always going to make it into your pocket. Then you just have to make sure you play within your limits in relation to what the BR stands at to ensure it never all goes. Hopefully at least 5% of the BR can be made on average each week and it can slowly grow. I've never really had a Bankroll as such. I guess all the money I have in the bank I treat as my Bankroll. Do others keep day-to-day money seperate from poker money? Because I've never done this but maybe need to start to. I think I'm going to start off putting £5k into poker (a very large chunk of the the money I have to my name) and see how taking 5% out a week works out. Hopefully having this as my "Bankroll" as such should help me play in relation to what I have in there, rather than me just thinking, 'if i lose this I can just deposit more'. If I carry on that way there may well soon be nothing left to deposit.

Channel 4 Documentary

2005-08-10T10:57:00.000+01:00

A few weeks back me and a couple of mates got asked to do a documentary for channel 4. They wanted to do a half hour show just on us. This was to involve them following us around with the camera's for a few weeks to get an insight to the kind of lifestyle's we lead and how poker affects us. They wanted to record us playing online, playing live at the casino, interview our friends and families to get their views on it, and even follow us on nights out to bars and clubbing. We were a bit aprehensive at first but then decided why not. It's not every day you get an opportunity to be on tv.

It all seemed to be going well as a couple of weeks back they came round to do the first bit of filming. All went and we were told we would hear from them in a couple of days time once they get the final nod from the bosses. Two weeks later and we still don't know if it's going ahead, and it becomes less likely by the day. A bit disappointing seeing as we were given the impression it was just about certain to happen. I know its not such a big deal really if it doesn't go ahead, but the fact that we had also managed to negotiate a bit of sponsorship from a poker site for the duration of the filming does makes it a little worse if this is the case. The large rakeback offer could have come in handy! We'll just have to wait and see....

Keeping Track

2005-08-08T20:40:00.000+01:00

MTD = +£2,675
YTD = +£29,675

Right, today I've finally set up a spreadsheet to keep track of how I'm getting on in each seperate area of poker I play in. So now, as long as I keep track properly, I'll be able to provide an up-to-date record of how the month is going along with a monthly report at the end. As mentioned before, I'm not too certain how much I've won so far this year, but just for interest I will also keep an up-to-date record of the year. I think before this month it was around £27,000. So although not accurate I'll use this as my starting figure.

I haven't really played much yet this month, but the profit so far was helped out a lot by winning a £300 6pak a few days back. I was short-stacked after an early beat, but managed through a bit of luck and of course plenty of skill to claw it back for over £1k profit. Much welcomed.

Maxi Rounders

2005-08-04T11:17:00.000+01:00

A friend introduced me to "Maxi Rounders" a couple of days ago on Prima. They seem a decent way of generating a lot of profit from little investment. For anyone that doesn't know, they consist of 5 rounds of 10 seaters, with the final Round 5 being where money is paid out to the top 5. For the previous rounds you have to finish in a certain position to proceed to the next round. You can buyin at any round you wish, but obviously for a more epensive buyin at the later rounds. I decided for my 1st attempt to buyin at Level 2 for $100+10. For this round top 2 proceeded to round 3 and 3rd place got another attempt at round 2. I finished in the top 2 but I'm finding it hard to get a round 3 table to fill up so I can try to proceed further. Round 5 if you were to buy straight into costs $2,200+220, with a top prize of $12,000. So all I need to do now is finish top 4 in round 3, top 5 in round 4, and then win round 5 and the 12k is mine. That's if the table's do ever fill up and get to play.

Over on Betfair I've made about £500 in the last couple of days. It was going well until I was tempted onto the Omaha PL $10/20 table by a mate. Omaha isn't really my game despite being up quite a lot at it overall after a decent run a couple of months back and I know I am really out of my depth in there. But the lure of how quickly money can be made in there does sometimes get the better of me. I took a look and there was money being thrown all over the place just as he said so stupidly I took a seat. I know I should stick to what I'm best at which is why I wasn't too pleased with myself when I dropped $1k in there yestereday. This along with a bad run at the Holdem Limit tables meant the day wasn't going too well until I decided to enter a £200 stt. Early on I got quite a gift from a very loose player. With blinds at 25/50 about 5 of us see the flop, me on the button with A8ss. Flop comes QQ8, checked round to me, I bet 100 into the 250 pot and only chip leader calls me (player who has been outdrawing every hand and getting stick from the other players). Turn A, he checks, I bet 350 and he just calls me again. River A, leaving only QQ to beat me, he checks again and I just go all in for about 1,500 hoping he has the Q and can't lay it down. He calls straight away with K8, giving him Ace's and Queen's king kicker. I'm not complaining and go on to take £1000 for 1st :)! Quick turn around and I'm satisfied for the day.

I think I may start playing Stt's a bit more, of my last 5 i've played ive finished 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, and 5th. Just a small run I know but I think it will be interesting to see just how well I am performing in them in the long run once I start recording properly where I am winning/losing.

The Background

2005-08-02T19:10:00.000+01:00

Ok a little bit of a background to start with...

I'm 19 and a student at Notthingham Trent University having just completed my first year. I started playing poker quite a few years now, but over recent months is when I started winning what I class as pretty serious money for me. After reading others players blog's I finally decided to give one a go myself. I'm no poker pro by any means, but I think this blog should be useful to look back on in future, along with forcing myself to keep more rigorous records of how I'm getting on.

Looking at other peoples blogs, I see most of them keep an up-to-date record of exactly how much they are winning each month and in what area of poker they are winning/losing at for each seperate game. I think I will try and do the same as it will be interesting to see just how much I waste on MTT's or if I really do make much from STT's. At the moment I mainly multi-table $20/40 and $30/60 limit poker on Betfair (Alias: Coca919) as my source of poker income, with STT's and MTT's on the side to keep me from boredom.

I'm mainly an online player, seeing as I have only played live 10-15 times or so. I think one of the main reasons for this is the lack of a near casino, along with of course the great convenience of online poker. My nearest it Grovsenor in Gt.Yarmouth, which is about one and a half hours away. This is where I played my first live tournement a bit over a year ago, managing to come 3rd and scoop £400 in a £20 NLHE rebuy. This involved outdrawing a mate I went with, which looking back at now involved an awful call by me! Other than that I've not had another place in the money live with a few more trips to yarmouth and a couple to the gutshot. I'm going to be living pretty close to Gala Notts next year at university so I'm definately going to be looking to play there a lot more. As for now, I'm in the middle of a 4 and a half month summer break from university, this has involved a lot of spare time for online poker, with the odd live game.

I don't keep strict records of exactly how much I win/lose but so far this year I've won about £27,000, which has much exceded any expectations I could possibly have had and has been a very welcome bit of income being a student :)! I haven't set myself any goals for the year or anything yet, so we'll just have to see where it takes me. As of now I'm going to try and keep records of how much I'm winning/losing. I do use pokertracker, which is great for showing me how I'm getting on in the cash games, but of course this means I have no records for STT's and MTT's up until now. Hopefully this blog will help me change that and force me to keep better records.

My best poker acheivements so far came within the space of hours of each other. This was one sunday evening on Betfair a few weeks ago. Firstly I decided to enter both the WPT Paris and Carribean Poker Classic qualifiers. I soon exited from the WPT qualifier but after a few hours found myself in the final 3 of the CPC with 2 packages up for grabs. The final 3 seemed to last for hours, going back and forth until I finally found myself in the last 2 and with a $10,000 package to my name. I was ecstatic, here it was... my first shot at a big tourney just round the corner, which is what I've always been waiting for. While the CPC qualifier was going on I had also decided to enter the Sunday30k Guaranteed tournement on Betfair. I had barely paid any attention on this tournement what-so-ever as I was concentrating on the CPC, but somehow once I had won my CPC seat I looked over and found myself in the final 15 of the Sunday30k. I went on to take 3rd place, finally going out on a coin flip which would have put me into 1st, and took a nice £3000. Within the space of a couple of hours I had my biggest ever tournement win (previously £800), and won entry into my 1st big tournement. What a night. I just can't wait for December and St.Kitts to come now. Although I'm sure I'll need a lot more live practice before that if I am going to perform well at all. To finish in the money I think would be quite a success for me, but of course the aim would be to bring it home :)!

Anyway, I'm not too sure how this blog is going to go... but I hope to update it as often as possible and all comments are welcomed.