Festive drunkeness!

Not to much to report since DTD. Im having a decent month and feel like im playin my best ever up around $3.5k + $500 or so in RB after about 20k hands and im running well which is obv nice. Im nearly up around $2k in Non showdown pots so im pretty happy with that. Havent played over the weekend as ive been out gettin blind drunk and in no shape to play poker, and i imagine the rest of the xmas period will follow in a similar vein. I intend to update my blog once more B4 09' outlining my goals for next year.

Gl at the tables

JP

DTD Weekend part1

So i arrived at DTD early Thursday evening after a surprisingly decent train journey (thanks to free interwebs). I went to meet the others reporting on the ME at DTD and played a £.50/£1 cash game. Nothing to interesting happened until i got it in BVB with KK<
The next day was the day of the £300 side event which i took part in and it got underway around 8pm. It had around 130 runners (more than i expected) leaving around £14k for 1st place. I started the tournament quite well getting up to around 16k from 10k starting stack after picking up AK a few times and 1010 twice and basically taking pots down with c/bets with very little resistance. There was a decent Norwegian player who was playin an aggressive game but everyone else was limp around. I even 5x raised AK into 4 EP limpers from LP and obv everyone called for "pot odds" lolz. Going into the first break i had around 13.5k after first 3 levels just above avg stack after folding JJ on bvb on a A 8 4 K board where the guy showed me his ace.(he played weak/passive and always showed never bluffed etc so i didnt bother c/betting).

After the break it went slowly downhill. I bleed down to around 8-9k after perhaps playin to loosely isolating LP with hands like A9o when in reality this table was limping stronger/dominating holdings. Then the key hand occured. I raised UTG with 1010, ss pushed for around 3.5k i called him showing KQ. flop 3 9 K...... so i didnt hold but meh. THe next 2 hrs or so consisted of me shoving on the blinds and surviving picking up no real hands until finally an uber shorty shoved for 2bb's UTG, i decided to shoved over for 8bb's with K9s a i suspected his range was any 2. He flipped A5o and despite picking up FD, gutterball and 2 live cards.......i did not get there. Next hand i was allin blind with j2S 1.5bb's and the ret was history finishing i think 57th of 131.It was late at the end of day1 at this point so i had a few beers with Ian and Andrew before calling it a night.

Saturday was pretty non-entertaining so i was railing the ME and Dean alot up until around 7:00pm when i played a £1/2 cash game. Bascially i drank throughout the game till around 3:00 am got up to £650 stack open shoved 1010 like a true piss head with a £375 stack to be called by QQ in the bb. Ive never done such a degen thing but i was pretty drunk and enjoying myself up until that point, but felt kinda bad about spunking such an amount when i could have comfortably made a few more £££ instead of losing it all. I also lost a £250 pot when i called a river bet with A high only for the other guy to turn his AK high into a bluff :(. Overall it was a good experience and i meet some good guys and will defo look to play some more live MTT's next yr as they are a good break from the online grind and i feel with a few tweaks to my live game and changing down gears alittle i am capable of a big score.

Last night i played a 200 hands HU pokerz for $1k which atleast has covered some of my losses for the weekend. Im up around $1.6k for the month now after 5k hands and running good which is nice. I intend to grind pretty hard online for the next 2 weeks before things gather pace for xmas.

gl at the tables

JP

All I want for Xmas is.......

To make some monies ldo.

November finished with a flurry to get me back to b/e +$500 RB.Hit a nice run in the last 2/3 days to ship $2k at the 6max pokerz so hopefully this will continue next month.This Friday i will be playin the DTD anniversary cup 2day side event at dtd £330 entry. Ive sold just under have my action to a few poker mates. Im quite excited about playin and it would be nice to ship a nice return for my backers faith.The tournament really could have any number of runners but i would hopefully expect around 80-120 to ensure a 1st prize around £8-10k. Apart from this i aim to put in only around 25k hands online since its xmas and im anticipating things will prevent me putting in further volume.

Gl at the tables.............

WTF is going on???

So im now 26bi below expectation in 25k hands ($5.2k below equity). Thankfully im only down $2.4k for the month and im 90% confident ive played better than October and September.I dont want this to come across as "feel sorry for me blog" because i ran pretty well over the summer and still have a healthy roll online and offline but its safe to say I have a stronger grasp of variance now and i think alot of players across forums like 2+2/ems really still havent embraced or respect how thin the edges are in todays games and how small the margins are between winning/losing players esp when u consider regs in 6 max games are usually only slight winners 0.5pt/bb-3pt/bb. In the last couple fo days i have read two interesting posts in threads relating with variance which i thought were interesting:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/brian-townsend-other-internet-stars-344654/index3.html
Mr beeks post in this thread is the one im referring to.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/58/heads-up-nl/success-failure-downswing-mindset-280899/
The opening post in this thread gives alot of solid advice and has helped me keep in a relaxed mindframe.

So today i ended up down around $2.3k alone which i think is my worst day to date. I can honestly say I played ok apart from one hand here:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3469585.
I just thought his line was really weird but looking back i dont think this villan is capable of turning a made hand into a bluff on the river.

And to end this entry on a positive note i hereby introduce the 1 outer!
beat: obv against me
I had my reasons for flatting preflop and this is not a standard play by me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3469678

Well i did manage to reach SN status and am now approaching 100k fpp's where im in limbo between instant gratification ($1.5k bonus for 100k fpp's) or saving for the 250k fpp $4k bonus. Im also planning on playing the £300 anniversary cup side event at DTD. I'll be selling action so if anyone wants to BAP give me a holla!

till then may the "run good" be with you.............

Reflection

This month myself and Dave decided to have a little prop bet action to motivate us into putting moer hands in for the month. Basically this means if one of us doesn't play 40k hands the other has to pay out $350. Unfortunately whilst ive played 7k hands already ive ran terrible and im down about 2.5k in equity alone ($900 down for the month) now which is dissapointing as i had been still playing some of my best poker.

However last night i played terrible and ended up tilting pretty badly playin 6 max calling off my stack really light. I then played some HU and found a real drooler sitting with $120 so after taking a bad beat 109 V a2 aipf on a A 10 9 board river A ldo, i open shoved A10 in true tiltworthy style which was snapped by Q9s whereby he rivered a flush and i decided to call it a night. I was really disappointed as i wasn't letting the running bad effect me up until yesterday but i guess you live and learn.

Since waking up today ive realised i need to put things into reflection. This is my 1st full year playing poker especially cash games, and ive gone from playin 50nl to 200nl whilst making over $40k profits (includings untracked hands donkaments/RB/bonuses).My yearly cash graph is included at the top of this blog. I remember a "goals thread" on EMS where i declared i would like to make $20k profits for the year and be grinding 200nl and having a 4 figure cash in donkaments. With regards to these targets i guess ive been successful and made them all about 7 months into the year, but because my last 2/3 months haven't been rapid progression ive wrongfully considered myself stagnated.

So today ive going to take it easy with the cash games and only put in 500 hands or so HU and then play the $215 6max FTOPS event at 1 in the morning. Beyond this my plans are simply to get my SN status (5k vpp's to go) play 40k hands for the month, and not put to much pressure on my myself and try as much as possible not to be results orientated.

May the "run good" be with you......

Close but no cigar! :(

Having being away for the weekend i played 500 hands of cash today and a few donkaments. I played the cash hands just after lunch and made just under 1 bi despite losing a 300bb pot with KK<
So tonight i f/t the $75 6 max tournament. I was particularly pleased with how i played and was a big CL from the last 50 onwards until i ran terrible on the FT. With about 50 left i did misplay one hand and got it in with A10>>AQ but apart from that i played well, v betting thinly, winning without showdown and making a few timely resteals and hero calls. Down to the final 10, the SB completed my BB and i checked to see a flop with the mighty 63o. I was CL at this point but the opponent was crazy/bad/ volatile so i didnt bother trying to blow him off the hand preflop. Anyway the flop came J 9 3 with 2 hearts and he 4/5 pots it and i insta call, turn brings a blank 4 and he 3/4 pots it...... i call again. The river bricks another 4 and the villan 2/3 pots it so i made the call after timing down given all the draws missed and he shows 53s (clubs) for a turned OESD.

Entering the FT i was 2nd in chips before the next interesting hand occurs. I raise 77 in the CO and the SB and BB call and the flop comes 2 89. I c/bet 2/3 pot and the SB calls. The turn is a Q, i checked behind IP and the river is the magic 7. The SB who was the most competent player at the table was CL and lead 40k into a 50k pot with me having approx 160k behind. I decided to just call as i really thought he had J10 and this proved to be the case :(. From then on in i was short and with 4 players remaining the same player took me out when i raised with approx 18bb's with JJ bvb and he insta shipped A2s on me. The flop brought an A and it was gg me for $1.5k. I also managed to finished 18th in the $20 1r1a on stars but lost A10s< KQ and K10
On the non-poker front i spent the weekend in the midlands catching up with my old uni housemates. This consisted of going out in telford on the friday and getting smashed in some dodgy bars/nightclubs in the black country followed by being sick early next morning and getting back on it later in the afternoon in Birmingham where we had a few beers in town before going to my mates girlfriends fancy dress house party. In my experience houseparties are often let down and result in everyone getting chucked out by around midnight, but this houseparty was quality with no trouble and lots of good banter flying around. I will include pics of this in my next blog update despite wearing the most horrific pink £3 primark t-shirt as part of my fancy dress.

In the meantime gl at the tables!

LOL donkaments!

On tuesday i decided to play a few tourny's since the cash games were full of regs and whilst im on a 45k hand b/e stretch i thought i would take it easy. I ended up going out in 6th for $2.2k which is a decent cash in the end but i played pretty terrible in the later stages.

Firstly, when we got down to the final 3/4 tables i isolated a limper in MP with 66. The btn and the limper both called and the flop came down K 5 3. The EP limper donk bet the flop and i shoved since the guy was a huge fish and i think any A4/A5/A3s type hand makes up his range. He called and flipped KJ and i was pretty disappointed in my somewhat tilty play in trying to push a french fish off a hand. Anyway the turn was a blank, before BINK......6 on river for a 2 outer!!! I played this really really badly but i guess in donkaments with 1k +fields you need your fair share of luck.

Nothing of note occured until the final table where i started 7/9 before i got a double up 3rd hand with JJ>>AK to go CL. From here it went down hill though. Firstly, i was pretty card dead and inactive on a weakish table, until i opened 8Js UTG 7 handed, the btn and bb both called. The flop came down 259 to clubs and i fired out a C/Bet which the BB called. the turn came a Q and i decided to barrel again for 1/2 my stack against a player who i noted as a station who could of peeled the flop incredibly lightly, however he instaa min raised and i insta mucked lol! following that i was then the table short stack and shoved over a raise and 3 bettor with AKs which was called by 1010 and i did not get there :(. I think this play was fine given the 3 bettor was the only competent player at the table and AK fair well even against his 3 betting range On the btn. Overall a decent cash but i really should of finished in the top 3 and look to take down the $9.5k.

Since then ive played around 2k cash games hands for around $600 profit which is good and my BR is looking healthy again as i am looking to build a 100 buyin BR for 400nl. Im also epexcting to hit SN early Nov where i will be able to purchase the $4k reward bonus from pokerstars which is sweet although it might be early January before i get there.

In general things are looking brighter than a few weeks ago i guess. My life plans are all geared at the moment towards purchasing a car in early 09. Im looking to buy a car in the region of £6-9k most likely a 2nd hand car something like a Golf GTI would be sweet but the insurance is going to be a nightmare for whatever i choose so meh! Your only young once! As for this weekend im playin golf early 2moro morning in northumberland with the golf society i play in. My golf has certainly improved but i tilt pretty hard when things dont go my way so hopefully i can just put in a steady round where i dont make a fool of myself.

gl at the tables over the weekend JP.

B/E is nicht sehr fun!

Since moving home from uni in June, things started great where i managed to book $10k+ wins for both july and August for cash games and donkaments despite moderate volume being put in. Since then I managed to put in 30k hands in September and made a poor $1.1k and its safe to say the heater is over. I did however cash in the only WCOOP i played (the $215 HU tourny) and came 116th/2000+ where i drew former WSOP ME champion Greg Raymer 1st round and took him down lol! I also beat Adam Junglen in a later round (An EPT f/ter in 07) and was pleased with how i played in general although the guy who took me up i felt i had a decent edge over.

October has started pretty horrible and im down $1.1k in total. For a 200nl player this isn't even close to abnormal but whilst im running pretty bad and not playing great im going to take it easy for the rest of the month and will be away for a couple of weekends anyway playin golfing and going to a uni flatmates housewarming in the midlands. Fun times i guess!