Jp's-poker grind

December results

2012-01-01T17:17:00.000-08:00

Online cash game hands: 31,883
Online cash game profit: $13,742

Rakeback: $1695
Milestone Bonus: $2600

Online MTT Profit: -$4900

Live cash game profit: $1500

Live MTT's: 0

December Results: $14,637

November results

2011-12-01T05:33:00.000-08:00

Online cash game hands: 26,393
Online cash game profit: $10,631

Rakeback: $1450

Online MTT Profit: - $600

Live cash game profit: $12,620

Live MTT's: -$5472

November Results: + $18,629

Its November!

2011-11-02T08:24:00.001-07:00

Long time since i last blogged i've been fairly busy with moving back home and sorting stuff out for travelling. Firstly in September my computer broke as i spilt a beer on it so ive temporarily lost my HEM database again! so annoying. Online was pretty tough i think i was down around $3.5k but i made around £5.5k from live poker. I managed to bubble the EPT HU, which was the only tournament i played.

October started really rough i was playing live since alot while i didn't have a laptop and was stuck around £10.5k from 2 sessions at the Vic, one £5/10 where i lost a monster pot with A9hh in a 3bet pot vs Kcks on a 9 45hh board. After a 3 week break online i got back to the grind and made $5k in cash games in around 20k hands which was abit of a struggle as the games seemed tougher than usual.

The weekend just gone i went to Newcastle to celebrate Ellwood's bday. We had a night out in the toon on the sat and there were about 8 of us grinding on the sunday. I was playing cash until about 8pm but decided to load up a few mtt's since everyone else was playing them. Many hours later hungover and very tired i managed to win the $10r for $15k+ change and the $33 quad for around $4.6k netting me a +$20k day. It was nice timing as ive just booked up for HK/Macau and leave 2 weeks 2moro.

Yesterday i played my 1st round of golf since August and went round in 89, fairly solid but it was winter greens so the holes were a good 50 yrds shorter than usual. I even managed to drive just over the green of a 247 yrd par 4. My driving and long iron play is pretty decent, i guess my short-iron and putting is always going to be inconsistent when im playing infrequently.

Yesterday i turned 26, i guess in footballers terms im at my peak. (in reality im in the worst physical condition ive ever been in!) So im officially a dinosaur of the online poker world. Stars were kind enough to give me some run good as a netted a $5k winning day. Im guess the next couple of weeks im going to grind really hard so i can reach the 200k vpp bonus before the end of the year, before playing alot of live cash in Macau with a couple of the better comps they have thrown in there aswell.

October Results:

Online cash game hands: 20,284
Online cash game profit: $5027.24

Rakeback: +950

Online MTT profit: $18,650

Live cash game profit: -£10.25k
Live MTTs: -£750

Staking: +£500

October results: +$7821.24

Not a huge month but pleased to get out of the hole.

swings and roundabouts

2011-09-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

Well i have not had much of an Indian summer, Im down about $9k in cash games online this month and probably over $10k if you include MTT's. I took a few days off this week as i struggle to motivate myself to grind when im downswinging. Its funny in the early days i used to book wins alot and grind heavily when i was losing, now it seems i grind hard when im winning and loss heart/cut my losses when i sense im struggling. One problem i need to cut out is grinding a little to long when im losing. Generally my sessions are 500-700 hands 6 tabling when my mindset is sound, however i do grind longer to try and get even usually playing 1k-1500 hands and its amazing how both my results and red line are so much worse towards the back end of sessions.

Luckily the day after my previous blog i had a remarkable session at the Vic, i was grinding £2/5 until a seat opened in a juicy £5/10/25 game opened. There was two spots in the game and luckily i ran hot and booked a £11.4k win. The game was unlikely any i haev played in recent history, both these players were playing every hand and 3betting over half, so although it was a great game i had to tighten up a little preflop to avoid opening/peeling 3bets too wide, or raise folding, when you know they won't let up on any street.

Theres some live MTT's at the Vic, so i'll likely play the £500 6max on wednesday and the ME (£1070) next weekend. I think online i'll take it abit easier and start adding some HU tables so i start winning some money. Looking towards EPT London i think i'll probably not be playing unless i bink something, i've got alot of outgoings coming up with travelling plans to finalise. I'll probably look to buy a few pieces of friends who are playing.

The bubble has burst

2011-09-07T16:40:00.000-07:00

September hasn't been a kind mistress thus far. Im down about $6k in cash games and had no real results apart from a min cash in the 6max WCOOP. Ive ran pretty bad but what was most worrying was tilting off a few stacks this afternoon which was reckless and something i haven't done since well before Vegas, its pretty immature and something i shouldn't have in my system since ive been playing over 4 years. Despite this i played the WCOOP HU, which tbf is probably not the worst competition to play tilted but i bust in round 3 which was disappointing, 4bet jamming 60bb's with dueces vs a 25% 3betting range getting snapped off by KQs (I think we all know theres only one winner here). I think im going to take a few days off from online and play some live cash, luckily i don't really tilt live probably because im far to self-consicous.

I've also decided to give up online mtt's for the short-medium term. Basically i can't be bothered with them and am unsure if i have an edge. I've never put in time or effort to learn anything about them and until i do, i think its irresponisble to keep punting off and not learning anything. I will play WCOOP 6 max and HU comps as i feel i have a legitimate edge in these comps as they are games im familar with. I'll also continue to play sat's for live events, i think i might do okay in live Mtt's since the fields are generally weaker and the structures are better/deeper than online which will suit my game. Its probably no coincedence that the event i finalled in Vegas i played had a 2hr clock and 60+bb average stack throughout the comp and on the final was 90bb+. It was also just about the toughest competition ive ever played live.

Looking towards the coming months it looks like hopefully i'll be getting a tan this winter! plans are been put in motion and from Mid-November i'll be going to Hongkong>Macau>Manila>New Zealand>Sydney>Melbourne>Dubai. I think myself and Ben Jenkins are going for the whole trip, with Ellwood/Spinks joining for new year in Sydney and the Aussie millions. Im pretty excited, i think we intend to play APPT Macau and Manilla as they should be good events in fascinating locations. After that a poker free 2 weeks in New Zealand in early December with hopefully some outdoor activities followed by Xmas/New year in Sydney.

Since i won't get back till maybe sometime in February i've decided not to live in London next year. London's expensive and since i don't intend to be in England more than 8 months next year it's probably more prudent to get a place in Newcastle where i could live like a king for 1/2 the price. I've felt a little stagnated been down here since i've returned and so moving up north between february and Vegas next year (May time) will given me time enough to decide where i want go from there. Another reason for moving north is to look into getting on the property ladder. Buying down here is impossible at the moment, so i'd like to go lower risk and look into buying a 2 bedroom property in Newcastle or Durham. If i really like it and the location suited me i'd consider living in it, but its more likely im looking at buying to-let. I currently know very little so i need to a) make good money over the 6 months so i have a decent roll for the games i play b) do some serious research. I might try and purchase some books for when im travelling, although im unsure if books are really a source of information for this sort of thing. If anyone has any tips/helpful knowledge i'd be eternally grateful.

gl at the tbls

JP

August results

2011-08-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

Cash games online went well this month, grinded hard and made good profits. Probably 85%- 3/6 the rest 5/10 with a smidgeon of well timed 10/20 shots. I ran well and played solid, finishing the month in the top 5 winners at 3/6.

Online Mtt's however have been an abomination. I think im down around $5k this month, unable to make any significant deep runs. I really don't have a clue whether i just suck at mtt's or whether its variance. My hourly at cash games for the last few months has been in excess of >$200 per hour so at some point im going to have to consider not wasting my time with online mtt's apart from WCOOP's where in theory i should do better with deeper stacks and better structures.

Didn't play live poker this month much. I played 1 cash session, playing £2/5 ROE which was pretty stupid as i don't really have a clue what im doing in PLO and dropped £2k donking around in it. I also played GUKPT Luton where i bust the last level of the day, nothing particularly interesting happened but i came away realising i haven't been to many worse places than Luton. I did play the £250 6max turbo mtt the night before the main and bubbled. It was agreed that the bubble boy would get a "saver" however i never caught the winner the next day so that lucky man is likely £250 richer.

Im really looking forward to WCOOP and grinding hard online for the next month, after that i might looking at drawing up a schedule for EPT London + sides and selling some action. Will have to have a think about it though.

August results:

Online cash game hands: 32456
Online cash game profit: $24,732
Rakeback: $1500

Live cash hours:5
Cash game Profit: -£2k

Online mtt profit: -$5k
Live mtt's: -£1k

Total August profit: $16,350

Pretty disappointing results considering how well cash games went. Im really happy with my game and hopefully i can get something going in 1 or 2 wcoop events :D

Grind on the mind!

2011-08-03T05:52:00.000-07:00

Since i've returned from Vegas i think i've left the flat on no more than 4 occasions such is my dedication to putting some good shifts in. When i first got back the games were rediculously good even for euro hours, but they haven't been so good recently which isn't too much of a problem as im back into my usual sleeping pattern so i'll usually be grinding any hours between 6pm-4am. I managed to log 72 hours for the last 2 weeks of July which is practically like working! :D

I started well winning chunks at 3/6 making $14k in 3days, inc coming 2nd in a HU hyper turbo mtt for just over $1k. I then went on a $10k downswing over a 4day stretch which was annoying before recovering a to make a $7.2k profit for the month. It was rather stressful because i was going some crazy variance whereby i was either running insanely above EV with a high W$SD or wildly below with a low w$sd, i think my stlye is fairly low variance since i only 4-6 and play fairly TAG but basically when i got it in bad i won and when i got it in good i lost which was a mind f**K and probably led me to play sub-par in numerous sessions.

I put in a MTT grind on Sunday which started horrifically i was running badly, losing huge pots for big stacks in the mid stages of $100r, $55r and i bubbled 2x €550 EPT sats. 3 cans of red bull deep, i managed a few cashes inc the Sunday mill and $22 cubed. My night however was rescued with the last MTT i played, an 11pm $27KO turbo which i won for $4.8k or so from 1400 runners. I ran hot all the way sucking out aplenty but played the final table well applying lots of pressure in the right spots shorthanded.

I've barely done anything other than poker since i got back, went to watch England vs India in the cricket at Lords on the last day with Ben Jenkins and my flatm8 which was cool, great atmosphere. I also went to a m8's 30th bday party on Saturday night where i got rather drunk and had a good time. I'll be heading up north Monday to see family and play some golf. There is an outside chance i'll play UKIPT Edinburgh, but the following week i'll be playing GUKPT Luton for sure.

July Results:

Online cash game hands: 22589
Online cash game profit: $7260
Rakeback: $1.2k

Online MTT sessions: 2
Online MTT profit: $2.5k

Back in not so sunny England :/

2011-07-18T05:48:00.000-07:00

Well im still catching my breath from what was a brilliant 6 weeks in Vegas. Not really sure where to start so i think its best to break Vegas into 2 posts (poker/non poker)

Poker:

It turns out i was fairly lazy with regards to grinding out here. In six weeks i managed only 12 cash sessions and 8 mtt's which compared to people like Spinks and Ellwood was a bit of a joke. If i could of played online it wouldn't have been a problem but its tough to motivate yourself to play long sessions when its fairly mundane and your often hungover, got regular chinese games going, cinema etc etc.

Cash went ok, ran average and made $11,650 in 12 sessions (around 55 hours)thats a nice $212 hourly which is higher than my online hourly but given i'd have put in 120-140 hours in this time it probably works out slightly less profitable for me. I started off playing 5/10 but towards the end of the trip i played $10/20 since mtt's and staking went well. I played $5/10 at the Venetian, probably my favourite cardroom in Vegas as its well run has plenty of games running. Towards the end of the trip i played at the Aria since the Venetian seldomly got 10/20 going and the Aria was nearest to where i was staying (the signature). Playing 10/20 in Vegas is actually fairly annoying, the Rio is 10/25 with a btn straddle so i wasn't keen to play there as its too big, i don't like the bellagio card-room so ruled that out. I like the Wynn/Venetian but games seldomly run there. So i was stuck with the Aria. It was a fairly poorly run room imo, understaffed huge waiting lists and no-one really taking charge but i was limited in choice.

The games i played in probably weren't the best. I generally grinded 6-11pm, on the occasions i played later and till 4am i noticed the games were alot softer but this was later in the trip and if i find myself bumhunting live games i need to acknowledge i have issues. The bumhunting in Vegas was absolutely rediculously, arguably worse than online. On numerous occasions i 3bet a player they folded and they snap asked for the table change btn which is rediculous. I could understand if i had direct position and was making it tough for them, but it was often one single 3 bet which didn't even make showdown. In my last cash session at the Aria a 10/20 game broke leaving me and Olivier Busquets playing HU to keep the game alive, that was cool and im fairly sure i held my own against one of the best and a genuinely nice guy.

So in total i played 8 mtt's. Overall things went well, in most mtt's i was actually really card dead and never really chipped up. i came 55th in the $2500 which i mentioned in my previous blog post and came 5th in a Venetian $2500 for $34,667 which is my biggest cash. I played my best mtt poker in this mtt where i finished day with 22bigs, went on an absurd heater on day 2 to be 5/21 in chips from 275 runners. 5 handed i had 30% of chips in play and was CL when i maybe made a mistake which cost me serious bean ($150k up top). I flatted KK vs HJ open as he opened off 30bigs and it went 3 way to an 822 flop. I min-raise the OR cbet and get overcalled by the player who nearly has me covered (we have around 65% of chips in play and theres 2 fairly short stacks considering the avg stack is 90 bb's). The player in question was a fish and a really nasty guy who had actually been berating me a fair bit even though hands hadn't gone to showdown often. Anyway he lead a 9 turn which i peeled and c/r allin on a J river where i bet 1/4 pot to induce. He had 88 and proceeded to call me a clown and mock my call :(. I didn't say a word but one player threatened to "knock him out" if he continued and the floor almost had to break up a fight lol. Next hand i have 30bb's and 99 5 handed and lose to JJ. I maybe should have folded the KK hand since there were shortstacks (ICM suicide blah blah blah), but he was a big fish on what was otherwise a fairly tough table so i just couldn't find the fold button.

The ME went badly, i can't recall many hands but basically struggled to win a pot on a really soft table and bust in level 4. Still waiting to make a day 2 in the ME :p. Sucks abit because i kept all my own action swapping out only 20% but no-one i swapped with cashed. Staking went well for a change, i had 5% action of Paul Nash who came 5th in a bracelet event netting me $6k. I ran absurdly good at CCR and chinese netting me some profit, although i spent alot of money on nights out a new watch, cabs, tipping, Trips, go-karting and general Vegas shannanigans which ate into my profits. I'm extremely grateful to come out ahead for the trip to Vegas since a few guys i went to Vegas with had a rough time (poker wise).

Vegas results:

Live cash hours: 55
Live cash game profit: 11,650

Live MTT profit: $14,761
Staking: + $5.5k

Vegas results: + $31,911

Full Flow in Vegas

2011-06-19T03:21:00.000-07:00

So ive been in Vegas for nearly 3 weeks and time has really flown by. Had a couple of epic nights out railing cody to the bracelet and Moorman to 3rd in the 6max, although i dropped serious bean on bottle service. Yesterday i was on an 18hr drinking binge and felt horrendous waking up at 4pm today.

I haven't actually played much poker. Only played 5 cash sessions and im a mighty $1k ahead, i was $7k ahead but dropped $6k in my past two sessions. Just been playing $5/10 really games are decent im hoping to grind harder in the coming weeks.

Mtt wise ive only played 4. Went pretty deep in the $2500 6max finishing 55th for $8k. Was a weird tourney for me, was short most of the mtt with between 20-50bb's and usually below average but i ground it out pretty well. I was really card dead all mtt so to go deep without running hot was kind of encouraging. I also had tough tables, Nanonoko was on my left on my 1st tbl along with Xian Lui. Later i share a tbl with Moorman (finished 3rd) and Pete Akery. Ive got 6 comps left so hopefully i can put together a deep run.

Aside from poker the nights out have been eventful and the nightclubs incredible. My days are suprisingly filled by going to the gym, sunbathing a little, winning chunks at chinese, eating way to much fast food (when in Rome) and going to the cinema. I'll hope to to more touristy-esque stuff towards the back end of the trip.

JP

May results/ Arrived in Vegas

2011-05-31T05:29:00.000-07:00

Arrived in Vegas about 14 hours ago. Only managed to stay awake till 7pm (Vegas time) and have just woke up now at 5am :/. I've had a virus aswell for about a week now so not feeling too great, but im sure its clearing and i'll be ok in a couple of days.

May ended ok had an upswing, towards the end of the month where i managed to make $8k in two days at 3/6 6max which was particularly handy. As documented before tournaments went terribly, im just about in profit due to my bink in the 109r 6max and the fact i sold 30-50% of my action in a few of the 4 figure events. Live cash went well again, i put in a short session last tuesday which i broke-even after about 5 hours of playing.

My 1st tournament out here is Thursday, Its a Venetian Deepstack $1590 hopefully i can get off to a good start. I seem to have lost my phone again so tweeting chipstack updates could be a problem for the 1st mtt's :(. I'll likely be blogging a fair amount while in Vegas as theres plenty to do should be alot of fun.

Online Cash hands:26516
Online Cash game profit: $11680
Rakeback: $1190

Live Cash hours:24 hours
Live Cash game profit: £8k ($13,195)

Online MTT profit: $500

Total May profit: $26565

Another good month im pleased with, hopefully i can transfer this over to the live games in Vegas!

Pretty tough week

2011-05-24T05:34:00.000-07:00

Firstly SCOOP was a massive anti-climax. Didn't make it past round 1 in any of the HU comps. I was a little unlucky with my draws getting a 5/10 6max cash reg in the $2600 and a 10/20 6max cash reg in the $260. Both matches lasted about 90minutes, i didn't play particularly well in either match although i was card dead which can sometimes make you try and force the issue to much in this type of format. I also played the $1k ME and the $109, busted the $109 fairly early flatting AA off a 25bb stack and getting it in badly vs AK on a KKx T board :P. the $1k i was doing well until i lost 77 to 33 AIPF and JQss vs K9o on a K67ss Tx board was my downfall hand. I just OPR'd my figures on stars and i haven't cashed in 21 mtt;s since i won the $109r 6max, pretty incredible achievement imo. Its abit worrying before Vegas but i guess live MTT's will be a lot different, or at least i hope!

Cash games online haven't gone great, dropped about $5k this week so im only $5k ahead for the month which is rather poor. Not running well but also playing sub-par. I think post SCOOP the games might not be so good so i'll probs only play a little HU between now and Monday(Vegas!). Had a good session at the Vic last week made around £3500. Made a pretty big call with 88 as the PFR calling a raise, turn + river barrel for nearly a $4k pot with 88 on a 735ss 4x Qh board. Think i might put a short session in later today aswell.

Outside of poker ive slowly but surely being trying to get things ready for Vegas. Bit of a pain in the ass doing all the bank wire/money xchange stuff but i guess its got to be done. A welcome piece of news was winning the fantasy football league i entered with a few mates which netted me around $1k. The last day of the season was epic, im glad Wolves stayed up and im glad for Martinez aswell as he seems a decent fella albeit at a shit club. Like most disappointed to see Blackpool go down which is testament to how well Holloway did with the resources available.

Yesterday i went to the opticians for an eye test, turns out i have a stigma (fairly common) and need glasses which i should get later 2day/2moro. Will probably start winning since i will be able to tell the suits of the cards! Funny how after i get told and have the test i suddenly realise how bad my eye sight is!

JP

Mid-May with Vegas days away.

2011-05-18T06:38:00.000-07:00

Since my last update things have gone along fairly reasonably. SCOOP/MTT wise things have gone pretty badly, i haven't cashed a thing since my 100r 6max win and i think im yet to make a 3rd break in a SCOOP which is pretty LOL given the structures are pretty darn good. This weekend has some good SCOOP's i intend to play. The HU $216/$2600 which should favour HU cash players more than SNG HU players since it starts with 200bb's instead of 100bb's which the previous HU mtt started with. On the sunday theres 6max and the ME which i'll play the L and M and maybe fire 1 bullet at a satelitte to the main H if im feeling it.

Cash games im up around $9.5k so far + RB. Games are good and i think im on the PTR list for top winners at the $3/6 which is a decent effort since im a fairly low volume grinder.

Got a few errands to run before i leave for Vegas a week on Monday, stuff like bank wires, extra travel insurance, currency conversions etc etc which is annoying but will need to be done within the next week or so.

Just got back down to London having been home for a week or so, had a couple of good nights out at home, appreciated how cheap everything is compared to down here!

I intend to blog once b4 Vegas, hopefully with a SCOOP watch on my wrist! (who am i kidding :P)

Wee shipped an MTT!

2011-05-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

last night i loaded a couple of 6max Mtt's on stars to go with my cash games.I'd seen the 100r 6max get overlay repeatedly and last night was no exception with around $10k of overlay on a $30k gtd. Luckily i chopped it HU for $7.3k which was nice and my first win of the year. SCOOP starts 2moro aswell so looking forward to playing a few MTT's this month, especially the $1.5k HU event.

Played at the Vic on Tuesday ran really hot again and booked a £4500 win. Played a few large pots, where i picked off one big bluff with trips, had something of a cooler with KK Vs QQ on an 8hi board vs a recreational player. Might only get the chance to play live once or so between now and vegas as im back up north for the week. Since ive had a good start to the year i'll likely start by playing 10/20 cash in Vegas, im not 100% how good the games are but usually there built around 1/2 recreational players although im confident the live regs will have glaring leaks anyway. Im looking to do a bank wire to one of the cages in Vegas for the MTT's im playing, if any1 has any useful information as regards to where its best to send that will be great. Its abit frustrating since Europeans often exchange online Xfer's for cash with American players which is obviously a no-no at present.

My schedule is the following:

2nd June: $1590 Venetian Deepstack
6th june: WSOP event 10: $1500 6max
9th June: $1590 Venetian deepstack
13th June: $1590 ventian deepstack
15th june: WSOP event26: $2500 6max
17th June: $2100 Venetian deepstack
20th June: $1590 venetian deepstack
23rd June: wsop event 40: $5k 6max
27th June: $2500 Venetian deepstack
2nd july: $1070 ventian deepstack

I'll obviously be looking to play the main, provding i satelitte in or have a decent score in one of the prelims.

Online cash has been good, already put in 7.5k hands for just over $4k profit playing mainly 3/6 6max. Been quite a few games running around midnight, so been jumping in the games while theres been plenty running.

Think my plans for the coming days are to play 1/2 rounds of golf in the week and catch up with the old man and probably go to watch Durham c.c.c at the riverside, where i haven't been in an age where i think they are playing Somerset. Should be good.

JP

April Results

2011-05-01T08:27:00.001-07:00

So April was pretty good, decent volume and solid profits. I also had a nice £3.8k winning session at the Vic midweek.

Online Hands: 27435
Online Cash game profit: $18,269
Rakeback: $1200

Live Cash Hours: 20
Live cash profit: £5,150 ($8602)

Online MTT sessions 2
Online MTT profit: Approx b/e

Live MTTs: DTD Monte carlo -£1090 (-$1821)

Totals: + $26,250

Pretty good month and pleased with my progress especially my 6max game.

What happens next?

2011-04-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

So on Friday the 15th April (now known as black friday in the poker world) THE DOJ in the US banned American players from FTP and stars and Indicted several key figures from the companies on accounts of fraud. Interestingly enough when the news broke i was playing the DTD £1K Monte Carlo and sheet my pants since i had a sizeable 5 figures on both sites. However as things have developed things don't look too bad, MSNL cash traffic has dropped a little but MTT'ers are likely to enjoy the reduced fields and lower variance. Im guessing the worst effected are the SNG players, and of course the American online pro's who have had the rug pulled from underneath them. I truly feel for those guys (even the shortstackers). It will be interesting to see the effect of vegas thats for sure.

So a couple of weekends back i played the DTD Monte Carlo event. I was in the top 5 of chips going into day 2, things didnt quite go my way as i 3/5bet jammed ATo for 45bigs vs Toby Lewis AQ. The day b4 i ran incredibly hot. I was up over 120k with 5 levels and busted 4 people from 30k starting stack, mainly coolers and a hillarious donation. Once again i have no problem accumlating chips, i just need to knuckle down in the middle periods when theres less room to manovre. I think i need 1 or 2 tournaments where i ninja through a load of levels with 20-35 bigs to get use to the disclipline needed in order to improve.

The next day i tried to play the £5/10 VIP game but no-one would start the game but me and Annette Obrestrad who was playing the big game been filmed there. We decided to just play a £2/5 HU game for 4 hours instead which was cool, i ran pretty well in the 3bet pots and won around £750 but decided to flip for £250 at the end, where Annette drew a 4s first and i somehow drew the 2s LOL. She was a nice girl and it was a fun match if not particularly profitable it was an important experience.

Online has been good, grinded really hard at the start of the month and im up around $17.5k playing a mix of 2/4-3/6 6max and 2/4+ HU when i get action. Running good playing okay is the theme i think. May should be exciting, i intend to go home for a few days pre Vegas to see family and also play a few of the SCOOP's which are at favourable times for myself.

gl at the tables all

JP

Decent start to April?

2011-04-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

The reason for the question mark is i managed to go deep in the 2.25mill on ftp last sunday, a top 50 finish out of 14k runners and $430k up top, with everyone at the final table getting $30k+. The sunday itself was going terrible, i was 0/14 for cashes until i ended up 1 tabling this for around 7 hours and $3700 to book a $2k winnning session. I ran like god all the way so can't complain really especially since i fired only 1 bullet, but i played close to my best so im pleased with that. I did have a perverse thought though when in the last 100. I felt in a way i didn't really want to win $428k as it would potentially drain my motivation to continue grinding cash which is probably an odd way of looking at things (obviously in hindsight $428k would be a beautiful thing). Maybe its because i've been grinding it out for a few years now and its all that i know, or maybe i have some deep root mental health issues.

Cash games are going ok up around $6k online with a mix of 6max and HU. My 6max game is improving a little as i get used to the pace of the games once again, although the odd hiccup along the way is a regular occurence. With HU i barely get any action on stars, FTP isn't so bad since PTR has stopped tracking for the past 6 months or so and ive only played there since vegas so i can get some action there which is nice.

I played some live cash in the Vic on Tuesday winning £850 for the session. Lost a £4k pot with KK VS AA where i flatter a 4bet called a 78J board Turn J went check check, before he potted the river allin. I probably should have folded since hes a decent tight reg but im a massive POW. I also won a £4k pot with AA vs 97dd allin on a K72dd 9h board. I still don't mind my play since the guy is likely peeling wide OTB when i isolate two weaker players, so feel he can have 86dd/89dd type hands. I also didn't have a blocker to the nut flush draw so opted to stick it in. Anyway river was a deuce counterfeited his two pair which was unlucky for him and he played the hand well. I also won a big hand vs the same guy earlier, peeling a 3bet with A4cc and c/r a 239cc board, turn Ko river 7c. He had KK apparently but i think its standard to c/r get it in here with 54% equity against all overpairs bar AA (i have a blocker anyway) also hes capable of getting it in with dominated draws.

Next week im playing the dtd £1k Monte Carlo event. Great place to play poker and not a bad night out for a few beers either!

JP

March Round up

2011-03-31T06:06:00.000-07:00

Slightly odd month and defintely flew by. Starting off grinding online, final tabled a GUKPT side and came 11th in the main. After that i took an involuntary 10 days offf or so because my laptop broke (so tilted from losing my HEM db). The last couple of days ive been playing some six max cash which has gone well.

I've just put together a MTT schedule for Vegas. Im going to be playing 10 over the 7 weeks, 3x WSOP 6max events and the rest Venetian deepstacks. Hopefully been a 6max/HU cash grinder should help me in these SH/Deepstack comps, My gukpt cashes have given me a little injection of confidence which is timely with Vegas around the corner.

Looking to the horizon, i think im going to bail on playing the IPO. I hear its a good value comp, but Dublin is darn expense and i'd like to get back into grinding cash online so with regards to April i'll probably only play the DTD monte carlo event and possibly the IPO satelitte there running there depending how im feeling. I may also play GUKPT Walsall right at the end of the month.

Online should be good fun leading up to Vegas, another FTOPs and SCOOP before i fly the atlantic so a timely bink would be rather fun :P

March results.

Online Hands: Around 18k Online cash game Profit: $7.5k approx
Rakeback:$400

Live cash Hours: alot 40+ easily Live cash profit: -£2.3K ($3685)
Online MTT sessions:2 Online MTT profit: -$2k approx

Live MTTs: Luton Deepstack (£550) GUKPT £200 re-entry, GUKPT £200 6max, GUKPT main £1590
Live mtt profit (after backing):+ £2450 ($3926)

March Profit: $6,141 Pretty disappointing month in the main, although i played really really badly live which ive been kicking myself about. I have however decided April will be my month. I have zero prior engagements so will be grinding hard to put in hopefully a $20k+ month.

F***k me!

2011-03-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

Pretty tilted at the minute. Last week my computer broke and today i heard its going to cost around £400 to fix. My m8 Ben can potentially fix it for alot cheaper but he would have to order a hard-drive which could potentially take a week (not cool for a grinder who hasn't played in 10 days). So it looks like i'm going to have to buy a laptop and do all the boring shit of installing a bunch of stuff.

Im most tilted about losing my HEM database. The database isn't particularly old (August 10') but i nearly reached $100k cash game profits on it and had a bunch of hands on regs which i'm going to lose. Luckily ive logged my results in this blog to give me a rough idea how im doing.

Couple of days ago i finished 11th in the GUKPT Main. i was CL going into the last 2 tables, but lost a couple of pots notably with AJ vsK4o AIPF and then i made a play cold betting allin with AJhh for 40bigs, vs co open and btn 3bet who had exactly the same stack size as me. It was a great spot, he just happened to have aces this time :P. I played well so i'm happy with that but with £101k up top, i'd have hoped to get a top 3 or 4 finish once reaching the final 2 tables. i ended up cashing for £4590.

March online wise is turning out to be a write off due to a lack of a working computer. I think i was up around $3k net after cash profits and online MTT losses. Ive made abit through Live MTT's this week, but im struggling to concentrate playing live cash, finding it extremely boring (probably because ive been in the Vic 5/7 days) Hopefully i'll buy a decent laptop 2moro and be back up and grinding online towards the latter end of this week and pretend that March never actually happened.

GUKPT in town this week

2011-03-15T17:39:00.000-07:00

So i haven't played much online this week. Went home friday, my brother had a surprise 30th bday party back home in Durham which was excellent fun all round, can't remember last time i had a decent night out in Durham (granted had less than 10 in past 5 years). On Sunday i went to Newcastle to grind Sundays with Ben Jenkins, Jono Beck and Jack Ellwood. We all bricked pretty hard and so yesterday morning me and Ben got the train to London for GUKPT and the sides.

We both played the £200 re-entry MTT. Only got 80 or so runners but we both final tabled. Ben finished 6th i finished 4th, after going into FT as chipleader so a little dissappointing for £1400 or so. Was £5k up top so only a baby comp. Played the 200 6max tonight, busted after 3 levels nothing interesting of note. Planning to play 1a of the Main on Thursday, need a long sleep 2nite to recoup as ive barely slept since friday. Probably go to cinemas or out for a meal+ beers 2moro to unwind some. Live poker is pretty draining deffo couldn't grind it out for a living.

JP

Sup March

2011-03-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

March has been a little frustrating. Blogging now after a long 13 hr live £2/5 session where i ended down £450. Pretty pleased considering i lost a £5.5k pot with 77 vs supfoolio (hs online cash reg) T8o in a 3bet pot on a 976 board.

Yesterday i grinded 15mtt's or so. Went deepish in a few on tilt but nothing to serious managing 3 cashes leaving me down around $1.5k for that session.

Cash games online have been swongy, was up $6k at one point but now in only 2k ahead. Running not so well about $5k below EV but i shouldn't complain.

On thursday i played the Luton £550 deepstack. i busted within 6 levels (lol) losing big pots with boat under boat. then bluff raising a river (definitely against the wrong guy) on a J4567 board, getting called by a naked 63. Next week i'll be playing GUKPT and the £250 side which should be fun. In between, im guna grind it out till the weekend online before i go back home for the weekend as its my bro's surprise 30th bday party (pretty confident he doesn't read this) which should be fun. The dress theme is black,white and silver so if any1 has any good clothing combo's fire away!

JP

February results

2011-02-28T15:10:00.000-08:00

This month was pretty meh, mad around 35 buyins online which is ok, but mostly at 1/2-2/4 whereas i broke even at 5/10 and lost at 10/20. Hopefully i can make 40 buyins in March.

Online Hands: 26,661
Online Cash game Profit: $8431.37
Rakeback: $900

Live Cash Hours:26
Live cash Game Profit: $7645.34 (£4900)

Online MTT sessions:2

Online MTT profit: - $1700

Live MTT's: None

February total profit: $15,276.71

Slightly disappointing month but none too shabby nonetheless. Im playing the £550 English open deepstack at Luton this thursday and the GUKPT London to keep me occupied for the beginning of March, February volume was decent mainly due to playing more 6max, but i expect volume to be poor in March especially if i go to Mauritius at the end of the month.

Its a funny old game!

2011-02-24T14:48:00.000-08:00

So since my last post things have gone well in a strange way. My downswing eclipsed at roughly $12k as i had a further -$5k day taking a shot at 10/20 FR as i got a seat in a game with an infamous Russian high stakes fish, donated yet another stack to him before losing another hand to a reg with TT vs AA AIPF which may have been marginal in a FR game as i don't really know what im doing.

This past week i've decided to not peek at my results $ wise. Since i play a spread of limits 1/2-10/20, i only look at my winnings in terms of BB's so im not effected by the $$$ swings and concentrating more on my play. In the past 5 days ive made around 20bi's which is pleasing although i suspect this is mostly 1/2 and 2/4 but i'm playing well and ive never been as confident in my game as i currently am. I won't peek till Monday and then only intend to look at my results weekly just in case something is going drastically wrong.

Last night i think i logged my best live cash session. I think i logged 9 hours for just over a £2.9k win which was pleasing. Live cash games at any level are just so soft, and people really level themselves and get FPS to easily so you can just hoover up alot of dead money playing solid.

Luckily, I've recently managed to get myself a live backer for MTT's which is cool. Basically a Russian investment fund well known on 2p2 and had action of the PCA winner and 2 EPT finalists, will be taking 40-60% of my action for future events over €1k. I've got alot linedup between now and Vegas, with GUKPT London, deepstack Luton, IPO, EPT San Remo and Spinks pointed out this http://www.millionparadisepoker.com/?page_id=6 which i cannot turn down as the place looks incredible. Just a little bink and i'll be delighted.....

Haven't managed to play any online MTT's really. I fired 4 bullets at the $216 6max and sold 50% of my action, i managed to get to the 3rd break with 4 stacks. Things didn't quite go my way in the mid stages and i didn't get 1 cash :(. I want to put a MTT session in sunday but me and my flatm8 are guna try and get tickets for the league cup final so i'll have to wait and see how that develops.

JP

The Curse of the Graph!

2011-02-17T05:02:00.000-08:00

Those poker players in the know will probably have read this thread thinking what a fool i was for posting a graph (rightfully so). Its fairly well known that after posting a successful graph the poker gods will strike you down in doubley quick time. So over the weekend i went on a $8k downswing playin 5/10 HU and some 2/4 6max. I actually dropped around 10 stacks on sunday at 6max, ran pretty badly but it happens and i wasn't too bothered as i know i looked at the hands and i think theres only 1 or 2 that i could of taken a different line with. Its pretty differcult jumping into 6max from HU, its impossible not to spew. This for me usually takes form in value betting too thinly and 3betting a little too wide. I might jump back in the games at some point, but i'd have to work on my game which to be brutally honest ive never done.

I've always been the same of been exceptionally lazy yet fairly talented in most things i do, usually resulting in me doing the bare minimum to get the job done or keeping the family happy for such things as grades/exam results. I don't look at hands or even discuss them with peers apart from posting a few "one liners" on forums. Nor do i watch video's or do session reviews. I don't think im alone with this type of mindset and like a true lazy person i've come to terms with it and am content with the realisation of how far this mindset can take me.

Put in another live session on Tuesday for a £1.1k win at 2/5. Only put in around 7hours because i was playing pretty badly and not concentrating at all which was annoying since i left when the table started to get good. I often play during the day live and leave later when the drunk players come in as it gets slightly irritating when as you can imagine slow the game down, chat shit etc etc. I know i should stay as these are the players who i will obviously profit the most against but been sober around drunk people isn't fun so i'd rather grind during the day with the regs and enjoy the company more.

Last night i watched the Arsenal V Barca match. What a match! Barcelona really are a cut above anyone else for sure, but i think this result on its on is huge for Arsenal running into the tail end of the campaign and even for future seasons. In all likelihood we'll get spanked at the Nou Camp but theres no shame in that really.

Solid start to the month

2011-02-09T09:31:00.000-08:00

Luckily im off to another good start up around $13k in online cash games in just under 7k hands. Still running pretty golden and am running just over $3k above EV. Sunday i put in an mtt session which didn't go great, i had a deep run in the Sunday warm up (120th) and $22 cubed but no real binks so i think i was around -$1.2k for the session.

Yesterday i played my first live session of the month and logged around 10 hours for £700 profit at £2/5. I think i actually ran fairly bad losing big pots with AA/QQ/JJ but did okay towards the end. I'll maybe put in another session in the next few days depending how i feel. Ive also after much deliberation not to play UKIPT Nottingham. Although its an excellent comp with a good structure i just think it makes more sense to grind online as im doing really well, whilst my live MTT record is probably the worst. Also theres some decent FTOPS/MTT's and stuff on Sunday which i would prefer to be home for.

Im just about sorted for Vegas, going for 2months (20th May-20th July). Ive seen the schedule and im not particularly impressed tbh. I can only see myself playing the ME, 6max $2.5k and $5k. The HU is a joke at $25k so most of my series i intend to grind $10/20 and maybe $25/50 live cash if things go well. I'll also dabble in some of the Venetian Deepstacks if i get bored of online/live cash.

I haven't really tried to win a seat for EPT Copenhagen so will likely just fade it, probably isn't the best value EPT anyway, so for now i have no plans to play live MTT's (almost certainly a good thing). I do however, need to check out the Palm Beach casino and play some £5/10 so will hopefully get to do that at some point this month.

gl at the tables all

Blog from Deauville!

2011-01-30T15:57:00.001-08:00

Urgh well Deauville hasn't gone well. Busted the ME at the end of level 3 running a triple barrel bluff in a 3bet pot with AK vs JJ on a 954 J7 board. I don't think its too bad considering he was a scandi and likely had more suited connector type hands which picked up pair+draws on the turn which would struggle to call the river. I think he folds 88/TT OTR aswell.

The HU i busted the 1st match, i won the 1st match flopping a str8 flush with 9Tcc on a JcQcKc vs two pair, before losing 33 vs 2To AIPF in the second match and finally losing AT vs QQ AIPF with high blinds.

The 1st of the €1K's side i played i managed to bust 1st level, KK vs QQ in a 4bet pot where i couldn't get away from a Q high board. Then today i busted the final €1k side in 13th with 8 paid :(.

Last night my Spinks and Ben put in an MTT session for lol's. I went deep in the 100r on stars, $75 super stack on tilt/20r on tilt before finally hitting a final table in the $30r. Managed to luckbox my way to 4th for a $4k+ score. My Mtt game seems reasonable at the moment, definitely more disciplined/patient than in the past.

That said im probably going to fade the £500 UKIPT Nottingham. Not so keen to play a £500 mtt when i'll probably do another £500 in expenses, beers and stuff.

January results:

Online hands: 20,004
Online cash game profit: $10,119
Rakeback: $500

Live Cash hours: 18 hours
Live cash Profit/staking; £2350 ($3720)

Online MTT sessions: 3
Online MTT profit: Approx $2k

Live MTT's: Deauville ME, €3HU, 2x €1k sides
Live MTT Profit: -€2.5k after selling action (-$3397)

Januray total Profit: $12,942

Overall January has been ok, looking foreward to february i don't intend to play any live Mtt's (outside chance of going to EPT Copenhagen) so i'll be looking to play 20k online hands a few mtt sessions and hopefully log more hours playing live cash but we'll see.

Leave Deauville for London on Tuesday think we're going out for beers tomorrow with a few of the english dealers i know who are a good laugh, plan to get messy although this place is ridiculously expensive maybe i can continue to run like god at credit card roulette.

JP

Pre- Deauville blog.

2011-01-22T16:50:00.000-08:00

So this week has been fairly reasonable, played a bunch of MTT's on sunday didn't really get anyway apart from f't bubbling a 6 max MTT and not getting close to cashing in anything else.
Monday i went to the Vic with Ben (cash horse) played sum £2/5 while he played some £1/2 and made around £950 total profit (well done benjamin!) so can't complain.

Since then ive grinded pretty well, ive played 16.3k hands for the month including a nice couple of $2/4-3/6 6max sessions for a little change from HU. Im up around $11.5k online, last couple of days have been meh but things progressing nicely so i won't put too much pressure on myself to log hands in Deauville.

Travelling monday and playing 1b (Wednesday). I'll be updating my twitter with chip counts at breaks (www.twitter.com/whollyflush) or anything that i find somewhat amusing. Since ive learnt that live cash games in France are taxed heavily by the government (too ignorant and lazy to know the exact amounts) ive been persuaded to play the side events. So i'll also be playin a 1x €1500 €3k HU and 2x €1k providing i don't make any day two's (Usually not much of a problem, tricky part is getting past the first couple of levels on a day two :P). Ive managed to sell 50% of my action of these to friends and a serial investor on 2p2.

Travelling by car with Ben and Jon Spinks, and theres plenty of UK players going so should be fun even if/when i bust early doors. Will try and put a blog post in post deauville with a trip report.

Gl all

JP

Quick Update!

2011-01-15T08:45:00.000-08:00

Things have gone pretty well since my last update. Im up around $10k online in just over 10k hands although im running absurdly hot right now.

Also on Tuesday i played my first live session of the year, played reasonably put in 11 hours and managed to bag a £1400 winning session. Audley Harrison was playing on the same table briefly which was pretty funny, seemed a nice guy but dropped £2k sharpish before exiting to go to some West end club.

I'll be setting off for Deauville on the 24th and will be there for 8 nights. I'll be playing the ept main for sure but am unsure about playing any side events, when i reckon there'll be some great cash games running. If things go well i'll probably play the €3k HU and sell action, but 2 can be a long time n the poker world.

gl all

jp

Goals for 2011

2011-01-07T04:55:00.000-08:00

So ive decided on my poker goals for the year and decided to outline them in this blog.

1) 200k online hands. In 08/09 i got well over 500k hands but now i switched to HU midway through '10 playing that many 2/3 tabling isn't as easy. I think 20k hands per month is a good number to aim for bearing in mind i intend to play a fair amount of live events.

2) 100k cash profit online. Does what it says on the tin, playing from 1/2- 5/10 i think this is achieveable as long as legislation issues don't affect the state of the games.

3) 10 hours live cash per week. Haven't played live cash yet this year since ive just moved back to London. I'll likely be playing a mix of £2/5/5-10 depending how things are going. I should probably check out the Palm Beach instead of just playing at the Vic to see what the games are like there. I'd hope to make in the region of $30k profit if i put in 520 hours.

4) 20 online Sunday MTT sessions. I intend to play a few majors and satelittes from now on sundays as they are decent value give you the chance to bink reasonably big.

5) play 3 EPT's, 4/5 WSOP events- for the love of god cash in something! Given how much money MTT's and expenses cost me last year i suppose ive got to be reasonably happy my roll is in decent shape and i made near 6fig profit last year. Hopefully a couple of cashes this year will help me have a more profitable year.

6) $200k net profit.

Hopefully by the end of the year i'll be in a position to buy my 1st house and still have a reasonable poker roll to play the games i do. If so i'll be extremely content with my lot.

2011 started pretty disasterously actually. I spent NYE in the toon at a house party with a few poker players and managed to lose my Iphone 4 which i just bought about 3 weeks ago WITHOUT insurance. Ive just bought a replacement costing me £550!

To follow that on NYD i dropped 3 bags playing 3/6 where i got owned pretty badly. Im now just about back to b/e for the year but im ahead of pace to play 20k hands this month.

I'll try and blog before EPT Deauville but we'll see.

gl all

JP

Another year goes by

2010-12-30T05:01:00.000-08:00

So im back home and after an enjoyable xmas period am sat on my ass a little heavier pondering the year gone bye. December has been pretty decent, up $14k in online cash games in 16k hands and up £2.5k in live cash which i played after i busted the monte carlo event midway through day 2. Finished about 50th of 250 or so, had chips omst of the event until around 70 left where i lost AQ to QT AIPF for a 200k pot, which would have given me a 300k stack (easily top 3 at the time) and a chance for a deep run. I played really well so can't complain and its just a matter of keeping the faith. Ive also managed to bink an EPT seat to Deauville which starts on 25th January after putting in a sunday MTT grind. My 1st online MTT grind in forever and although it started appaulingly i managed to bink this seat and go deep in a $22 cubed on stars and a $75 on tilt. As a result one of my goals will be to grind at least 20 sunday MTT sessions as i think i may finally have the patience and willpower to play online MTT's.

This year pokerwise has certainly been a game of two halves. Pre vegas and Post Vegas.

Pre Vegas i'd had a bad year breaking even in midstakes cash games, winning nicely in live cash games, and bricking live mtt's (although this was a common theme throughout the year). The highlight was winning a $33r 6max mtt for around $5k and in April winning the $215 HU tournament for around $16k.

Vegas itself was a blast, i did well in cash games at 2/5-5/10 (made $5k+) but bricked 3 tournaments i played inc ME where i bought 1/2 my action so i certainly ended the trip down after expenses.

2010 Monthly Breakdown.

January- $9k profit online in 45k hands (approx $2k RB), + £630 live cash 1/3 session

February- -$5416 online in 47k hands (approx $2k RB), + £922 live cash in 6hr 2/5 session. Approx £800 down in UKIPT MTT's

March- $11.5k profit in 40k hands (approx $2k RB), +£1k from live cash games. -€2.2k from IPT Nova Gorica MTT, +$5k from online $33R 6max MTT.

April- B/e + $2k RB, + $15.5k MTT score, -£2.8k in live cash

May/June/July- Hmm failure to blog so no records, but IIRC i made no more than $5k from online cash games and made approximately $8k from live cash games inc Vegas. was probably down in the region of $8k from Vegas mtt's and Nottingham UKIPT.

August- +$5k in 22k hands (approx +$500 in RB) Switched to HU here, +£3k at 2/5 cash, -£300 from DTD Deepstack MTT.

September- +6.5k profit in 15k hands (approx +$350 in RB), -€2.5k in Live mtt's in Ireland across UKIPT and side events.

October- +15k in 19k hands (approx +$400 in RB), +£4k in a few live cash sessions. -£1.5k in HU EPT mtt.

November- +$18.2k in 18.5k hands (approx +$400 in RB) + £500 in live cash, -1.5k for World HU mtt.

December- +$14k in 17k hands (approx +350 in RB), - £2.5k in live cash, - £750 for DTD monte carlo event.

So very roughly my figures are:

Online cash games- + $78,784. Pretty dissappointing but given how the last 6months have gone im reasonably happy with things going into 2011

Rakeback- Very rough estimate of $12k. Alot lower than last year naturally as from August onwards ive played solely HU cash.

Online MTT's- +$13k net profit + EPT deauville package. played less than 200 MTT's this year managed 2 wins (1st 5 figure score) so a fairly pleasing effort.

Live cash games- +$15,331. First year playing live cash semi regularly went well apart from a couple of £5/10 sessions towards the end of the year.

Live MTT's (aka my kryptonite)- -$21,690. This figure is likely worse since ive ran bad at staking and the expenses gathered on getting to these events.

Overall it works out to be a Net profit of $97,437 which is way short of my original goals, variance hasn't been kind at Live mtt's. Having said that ive done remarkably well post Vegas and with an EPT package in the bag im hoping to get off to a flyer in 2011 and will be looking to outline my 2011 goals early in the New year. Have fun everyone!

Uncertainity in the online poker world!

2010-12-08T06:29:00.000-08:00

Over the past few days i've found myself pre-occupied with the uncertainty around the future of online poker. Those of you aware will have heard that Senator Reid is intending on attaching a bill to regulate online poker to a greater bill, which will see Americans free to play online poker again.

However, all is not as it seems. A 15month "blackout period" will insue meaning US players won't be allowed to play for this period so that online poker sites have a level playing field (Seems the big casino players MGM and Harrah's are throwing substantial amounts of money at this having seen the success of stars/FTP). On a purely selfish note this is likely to have a huge effect on the games with traffic been more than halfed. Granted im not a huge grinder but it is a worry and i feel sorry for those big grinders like Nanonoko and Gregy in the US who really will have big decisions to make if this passes through.

Another bone of contention is the lack of clarity after the 15month blackout period. Rumours are circulating that stars/FTP will be frozen out of the American market for a further two years (almost as punishment for accepting US players whilst poker wasn't regulated in the US). At A-level i studied abit of American Politics and i remember all the beaucracy, back scratching and corruption that is a result of a proportional representation electoral system. Throw in an industry where money is like confetti and those with the deepest pockets (Harrah's/MGM) and there perogatives will prevail.

Enough of the depressing stuff anyway. November was great made about $20k online in 18k hands. Live didnt go well, i dropped about £5k in two sessions. Running a huge bluff in a 3bet pot which wasn't great for £5k pot and losing set under turned set in another session for a £5.5k pot. Can't complain things are going well. December has followed in the same vein up around $7.5k in 5k hands, so hopefully i can churn out a decent month before the sky falls.

Next week im going to DTD. Still debating whether to play the Monte Carlo MTT or just play live cash. I'll make a decision nearer the time hoping i don't downswing to hard between now and then.

Looking towards next year, i may have to play live alot. I currently intend to play IPT Lugano (15th Jan) EPT Deauxvile (25th Jan) and Stars Estrella Madrid (2nd Feb) assuming i can sat into 1 or 2 of them. I'll almost certainly play all 3 if the blackout period is in place by then.

Got friends visiting this weekend for Sunderland vs Fulham match. Probably won't be a classic but looking forward to seeing m8's i aint seen since before Vegas (Aint been home since June :S). After DTD i'll head str8 up north for Xmas celebrations and hopefully a good few boozy nights in Newcastle/Durham.

Lets hope we have good news in the coming days.

JP

A regal performance worthy of a crown, although deep rooted problems threaten immediate future!

2010-11-14T03:20:00.000-08:00

For my regular readers (all 2 of you) you maybe aware that this blog post title is somewhat more cryptic, than my usual run of the mill blog titles. So far my volume has been lame this month, ive put in 7.5k hands for $14k profit which is pretty good and im still riding the heater. Im also up around £3k from 2 sessions at the Vic.

Now the reasoning for the title is non-poker related. Around about 1 month ago i had a crown put on my tooth, which set me back about £200. For the past week ive been suffering tooth ache which got progressively worse under the crown, to the point where at 6am Saturday Morning in extreme pain i rolled out of bed to look for emergency 24hr dentists online.

Luckily i found one and got an appointment that morning, at an address called non other than XXX Dr Watson chambers, Baker st. So i hopped on the rattler for a short 10min tube journey. Once i got there the waiting room was full of people looking rather grim (naturally) but i managed to see a dentist quickley, who took an x-ray and discovered i had developed abscess on my root under the crown and would therefore need a root canal (sigh). Not only this but for the pleasure it would cost £500 on the day in total for consultation and the 1st stage of treatment, and then a further £250 when i go back in 10days time for the second part of the treatment. So in total its going to cost around £1k for work on one tooth which im assuming the 1st dentist i saw and made the crown (who i disliked and had absolutely no faith in) made a botch jump letting my tooth get infected. After surgery and the numbing injection weared off i was in severe pain and my gumaround the root causing the trouble had ballooned, luckily towards the end of the night anti-biotics kicked in and now im in no discomfort which feels truly awesome. One downside is i can't touch alcohol till after stage 2 of my root canal surgery.

cliffs: Look after your teeth

went to see Kevin Bridges last week which was com at the Hammersmith apollo, but now i need to get back on the grind since im not on course to hit my 20k hands a month goal. On my way to the Dentist i swong by the Vic to buyin for the World HU championship MTT which starts this coming friday, surely this is the mtt to break my live MTT duck right?

JP

October recap

2010-11-05T06:14:00.001-07:00

So October was my best online month this year, which ironically coincided with it been the least volume ive put in a single month in over 2 years. Not too surprisingly since its 95% HU and a few successful hands bumhunting 5/10-10/20 6max. I played alot of live cash early in the month with EPT in town and a ton of tables running at the Vic where i pocketed £4-5k making it around a $25k month which is pleasing.

Since ive got back from Vegas it seems (touch wood) ive turned a corner finally and although im going to fall way short of my original targets for the year, i should finish the year strongly. November has been positive thus far aswell up $5k online while i managed a £2k win in a £2/5 session on Tues at the Vic in a particularly juicy game.

I'll be playing the World HU championship which is in London on te 19th, currently selling action on 2p2 here http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/184/staking-selling-shares-live/whollyflush-selling-world-hu-championship-910481/#post22680491 so if anyone reading is interested in the sweat u can buy a piece while im on a nice heater. Ive recently been buying lots of action of other people playing live events in Amsterdam and various UK events so hopefully someone can bink as im definitely down a ton in live mtt staking.

On a non related poker note it was my Bday on Monday and ive managed to make it to 25 not out, although i feel pretty darn old especially when all the people binking these huge tournaments are 4/5 years my junior.

JP

October!!!

2010-10-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

So since my last update things have gone pretty well. Made $8k in about 12k hands last month (all HU and was away in Dublin nearly 2 weeks). I played alot of cash in the Vic while EPT was on £2/5-£5/10 which i did okay and made around £4k over 4-5 long sessions.

I also played the EPT £1K HU which was a slightly crapshooty best of 3 format which definitely suited HU SNG players as opposed to cash. I won my 1st match 2-0 quite comfortably. Managed to C/R 9To on a 99J board and got it in against 43o no draw :) then whittled the guy down to short and had AJ beat his KK. Unfortuntely i busto'd in round 2, Managed to lose A8s to 78s with the guy down to 10bigs. From there he made a comeback to win match 1. Match 2 he also won as blinds were huge i opened A8o with 22bigs, he shipped i called and he had AJ :(. Maybe close but he was an aggro HU sng grinder for a living so meh.

Plans for this month are just to grind HU cash online. Doing well again, up around $11k in 11k hands from 1/2-3/6 across stars and tilt and im pretty happy with my HU game at the minute. I'll also be playing the world HU competition that is at the vic next month (£2.2k buy-in) so i'll probably look to sell some action at mark-up when i speak to a few people.

gl at the tables

JP

UKIPT Dublin

2010-09-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

Well could of gone a little better TBH. Ended day1 on 56k (double average) was in good shape but day 2 was a nightmare. Within the 1st hour i won AJ>KJ vs a shorty, then proceeded to lose 77 to AQ (river A) for a 28k pot AQ to A9 (9 river) for a just short of 40k pot and KJ to 66 on a JT4 6 K board where i didnt go broke somehow. My bust out hand wass sumthing o an error howvever, as i opened TT UTG with just over 20bigs. Middle aged guy with large stack 3x 3bets and i jam when i should probably just fold against this guy but i guess i was slightly tilted (oh he had QQ). Got nothing going in the sides either lost a few standard flips nothing particularly exciting.

I did play the €1k HU winner takes all that got just 8 runners. I beat Vanessa Rousso 1st round, i ran pretty nicely and she kinda just let me run her over which was nice. My 2nd match didnt fair so well. i ran a huge bluff 3betting 67o and bombing 3 streets on a 933 T Q board getting called by AT, then with my last 25bigs i got it in with AK against A8. 8 peels off on the turn and its gg me. Ive ran terribly bad thus far so hopefully this SH 6max event will be boomswitch activated. There putting on 6max cash games from 2moro night onwards aswell so i'll get on that grind with alot of french players expected to be playing.

I played online yesterday a little and took 10 stacks off a reg in a few hundred hands to book a much needed $2k winning session. Ran like good (about 3 1/2 stacks above EV)

Quite an important few days coming up i guess as i wat to play a ton of ept stuff but how well i do in next few days will determine this.

JP

Long time no post!

2010-09-01T06:08:00.000-07:00

Brief update

Last few months have been decent haa gr8 time in Vegas (not MTT wise as i busted ME early level 2 with middle set). Never got close to money in other MTT's i played but meh made a decent clip at $5/10 live to cover a ton of my expenses so nearly broke even on the trip.

Goin to Dublin next Wednesday for UKIPT and the Euro Short handed Championship which is a couple of days later fortunately so will be in dublin nearly 2 weeks. I'll be updating my twitter for sure.

Online ive switched to playing solely HU. Went well last month, made about $6k in 20k hands which isn't to bad. Booked a £3 session at the Vic last week aswell so can't complain. WCOOP is just around the corner aswell so hopefully i can go deep in a couple of them.

I'll be updating in Dublin and you can follow my tweets at www.twitter.com/whollyflush

JP

The Truth Hurts

2010-05-11T07:26:00.001-07:00

Since my last update things haven't gone particularly well. I ended last month break-even in cash games, but thanks to this $16k+ donkament ship and a few $$k rakeback i had a winning month.

My May grind was delayed as i went home for a few nights out and watched the Sunderland V Man U game with friends. Wasn't a great game, but plenty of beers with old friends made it a thoroughly enjoyable poker free break. Since ive returned im around $3k down this month. Took 2 shots at 5/10 (stupidly) down to boredom/degeneracy and dropped 2 stacks wit top 2 twice to rivered sets in a raised pot and a 3 bet pot. Shouldn't have been playing 5/10 in the 1st place but would be nice for the poker gods to cut me some slack 1 time.

So the title of this blog post relates to myself in the state of todays games. At Midstakes im on a 30bi downswing at present only now, with the new stars tables its fair to say i cant beat midstakes anymore. Up until early April, i still think i was a winner in the games but since the changes there are sometimes only 4tbls at 2/4 running Euro hours and i doubt i could be a winner in most of the lineups anymore.

In the past i had the excuse of running 90bi below over a 9 month period, which for someone who has played over 1.5 million hands has been tough but during this period i was still confident i had an edge and i still believe this was the case. Now however, despite still running under EV i feel im getting outplayed at $2/4+ and its time to consolidate and grind SSNL for a couple of months to see if i can churn out a couple winning months.

Thankfully ive been crushing 200nl for the past week, although ive ran rediculously hot ironically which just makes me more bitter. Im sure a true reflection of my winrates would be for them to be closer than they currently are, but hey shit happens. So for now im just left questionning my "shelf-life" as a poker player as im sure everyone knows or have heard of players in the past who beat certain limits, before sliding down the limits and donating a ton of it back. I dont really want to slip into that category so i'll be treading water during the next 2 months making sure im realistic about my roll in the poker economy.

One option im considering is playing High stakes HU sng's $200+. They seem fairly soft and since HU cash is dead i think i could turnover a 8-10% ROI in these over a fair sample i might experiment in the coming weeks.

Played a little live pokerz last week and booked a £1k win. Was £1.8k down at one point so a nice +£2.8k swing in the early hours was good for my sanity. If all else fails i could always become a live pro and make a decent living. Tomorrow im settng off to play UKIPT Nottingham. A £500 4 or 5 day event (can't remember) THere also running a £220 6max side event, so if i bust i'll hop into that or grind cash games for the weekend. Should be good fun nonetheless and im really looking forward to it.

JP

No Money HU everybody's solid!

2010-04-26T06:01:00.000-07:00

Shipped the $215 HU last night for my 1st major win and $15.5k. Pretty pleased naturally and won the last 4games or so comfortably. I beat two HSNL cash regs in the early rounds thanks to 77 vs AK AIPF and 55 vs 32hh on a A 5 8hh board. Offered to do a chop HU because of the huge pay jump yet the fish declined. So glad i didnt chop as he was the worst guy i had played all evening.

Prior to the win i had my worst week in poker i think :(. Firstly my computer got a virus last weekend and i was unable to back-up my HEM database, meaning i lost over 300k of Hand histories with alot of reads and notes on regulars :(. It cost me £220 for the priviledge of getting it fixed as i tilt went to a well known high street retailer. They then told me it could take anything up to 45 days to fix! So i basically bribed them into fixing it next day as in theory that should be the cheaper option.

Im down about $5k online for the week. Started a new HEM db so steadily remembering who is who when im playing. Ive run really bad and played very very tilty which is probably due to a combination of things but whatever. Volume this month has been fairly lame i think along with profits which are probably about $2k+RB. On Wednesday i played £2/5 at the Vic and had my 1st losing live session. Was stuck a total of £2.8k after losing a monster £3.2k with JJ on a 578 Kdd board facing a huge overbet donk on the turn allin for 3x pot. I snapped and river peels a 9d to which the guy turns over JTdd gg me. So it looks like this MTT ship has just covered my losses for the month + change :P

Stars recently changed there table buyins which have had a negative effect for me personally, the 40-100bb tables are pretty tough as fish are attracted to the 20-50bb tbls. At midstakes Euro hours there are no more than 15 40-100 bb tables running, so theres not much choice for table selecting playing 6-8 tables. I don't crush like i used to and wont be a winner on some of the tables i play so grinding a decent volume of hands may be difficult in the forthcoming months.

My Intentions for May are to play quite a few donkaments. Some really good SCOOP event so with a bit of look i can hopefully sat into a few of the biggies and claim a few cashes. Ive also just bought into UKIPT Nottingham online, DTD is just too good of a poker venue to turn down. Should be an immense week.

Will be going home next weekend for the bank holiday, hopefully the weather is great and i can have a few decent nights out in the Toon.

gl at the tables all JP

From Hero to Zero!

2010-04-09T13:50:00.000-07:00

Been a swongy week thats for sure. Played some like cash Tuesday night at the Vic, managing to make £2k profit thanks to a cooler 88 vs 86 on a 8 6 5 flop and sucking out in a big pot double barrelling allin with KdTx on a 6 7 9ddd X board vs J2dd. River is a delightful Qd.

The next day i recorded my biggest cash day online making a tad over $6k in 2k hands. Naturally i was pretty pleased although i knew i ran pretty hot with a 64% WSD. I have str8 away downswonged just over $4k which is annoying and wiping out a chunk of this weeks profit. I remain about $5k to the good + my live profit for the month so its not too bad. Think im going to play some more live £2/5 2moro while im running well and enjoying the craziness of live cash.

Think im going to play GUKPT Manchester providing i dont downswing further at the end of the month. Will probably sell anything up to 50% of my action so if anyone is interested let me know.

JP

March Round-up

2010-04-02T09:28:00.000-07:00

Well March was the month where i finally put together a solid month. My volume was slightly lame at only 40k hands, but i was in Italy nearly a week, coupled with been bone idle and not playing more than 7-8 tbls max i was unlikely to hit 50k hands. I made around $11.5k from online cash games +$2-$2.5k rakeback, £1k from live cash games and managed to bink donkament (image above) for $5k making it roughly a $20k month.

So on sunday i loaded up a few 6max MTT's, a few satelitte's for live events and the Sunday Million. Failed in most, final tabled UKIPT Nottingham satelitte and got my £££ back but ran terribly losing AQ to A7 for CL then eventually busting call a SB shove with K8 losing to K7. I did manage to chop the above MTT for $4.9k. I thought i played really well in the 33r 6max since towards the end of the tournament i wasn't really getting my own way. From the last 3 tbls onwards i lost a huge pot AQ vs AJ vs AJ allin 3way which would have made me a big CL. I was short-stacked for the last 2 tbls and this continued into the last 4 as the cl squeezed the advantage over the other players who were all equally short. I then won a flip JJ VS KQ and applied pressure 3 handed, knocking out the former CL with ATs which i 3bet pre and c/c an overbet jam on a T 8 7 board and held vs 75s. The guy blew up in the latter stages big time after having 1/2 the chips in play 5handed.

Decided to do a chop as chipstacks were nearly even and it was 5am, my opponent seemed ok although im certain i'll have had a decent edge over wot was a SNG grinder with 70+bb stacks. However, it was 5am and in tune with my laziness i just took the chop which was a fair deal for both parties.

On Wednesday i played sum £2/5 at the Vic for about £900 (Inc returns from a horse playing £1/2) Scooped my biggest ever pot around £2.1k with 89ss in a 3bet pot on a 7 T K A 4 3spade board where i backdoored the flush :P vs a set of Kings. Ez game

Going to try and get more volume in April, breaking the 50k barrier as i dont intend to play any live events this month. Started ok up $2k over my 1st 4k hands so hopefully i can put back to back solid months on the board.

Over and out

JP

BUSTED

2010-03-20T14:45:00.000-07:00

Novs Gorica II today (day 2) got in in for 15bigs at 800/1600/100 on the button with K7o and got called by kjo :(.

Day 1 didnt go great fluttered around average most of the day then lost kk to aa towards end of day1 and generally never got anything going. Not much to do in Gorizio and internet is terrible. On a positive note ive crushed the draw poker slot machines for around €15 whilst bas has donated about €50.

Fly back monday back to the grind tuesday.

JP

Quick update

2010-03-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

Going to Nova Gorica to play the Italian poker tour in Slovenia on Wednesday with Bas. Buy in is €2.2k Euros i think, but i managed to buying for 190K fpp's (<3 stars). Hopefully should be fairly soft with lots of rich middle aged italians playing. Time to get on the Hendon mob DB imo (to be fair ive played about 5 mtts >£500)

Online has been ok, played just over 25k hands for just under 7k profit. Decent volume but im going to be away till monday, so unlikely i'll hit 50k hands for the month. Craving a 5 figure month and playing pretty well so heres to hoping.

gl at the tables all

JP

My Worst month ever ;'(

2010-03-01T07:43:00.000-08:00

Soooooo Febuary was horrible, my 1st real losing month in over 2 years online and it totally sucked. Didnt play too bad, ran bad at 600nl lots under EV same theme as previous few months. This month im going to mix in a little 100 and 200nl to lower the variance for the 1st week or 2 of March depending how it goes.

I played Manchester UKIPT in the middle of the month but went out in about level 8 on day 1. Losing AA to ATs in 3bet pot, nothing particularly unusual. I decided to play the £300 FO 2day the next day as i felt good, managed to make day 2 but fell short of the money losing 2 big flips for top 5 stacks with something like £15k up top. Live cash was good, played £2/5 at the vic last week and pocketed a £922 win in around 6 hours. Standard was probably equivalent to 10nl online and i was just allowed to run over the tbl.

Midstakes live cash at the vic, seems to have a mix of uber fishes and weak regulars who will only get it in with a set. Not sure if im playing any live events this month, there is GUKPT London but its abit more expensive than standard GUKPT's so im toying with the idea of going to Nova Gorica (Slovenia) for the IPT (italian poker tour, yeah thats right in Slovenia) if i can win a package or sell a boat load of action.

Heres to making March my bitch this month, instead of vice versa

JP

Back to winning ways

2010-01-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

Been on something of a tear the last few days online and my month stands just short of $10k profit after 44k hands or so. Pretty relieved to be winning again after 150k hand B/E stretch and this is my 1st month since June running at Expectation.

Since stars improved there vip program with stellar awards and more bottom heavy milestone bonuses im now going to be raking in a minimum of $2k RB per month which is awesome as it allows me to cover my monthly nut aslong as i grind 50k hands per month.

On Tuesday i went to the Vic to play some £1/3. Haven't played there before but ut was a typical live cash game, lots of multiway pots and surprisingly pre-flop aggression but i managed to book a £630 win in about 6 hours during the afternoon. Its alot different for me to play FR live as i play SH and HU online, so i just nitted up in the main and stayed out of big multiway pots to try and punish players by getting action HU by 3 betting IP. I think ive only ever had one losing live session which was mainly due to getting phished and shoving £600 in a £1/2 game over a single raise with TT. I'll defintely make the trip about once a week and play the £2/5 game regularly. Hopefully these sessions will help me for when i play live MTT's.

Plans for the near future are to keep my grind on while im running good up until UKIPT Manchester.Hopefully i'll update prior or when ive arrived in Manchester.

gl at the tables

JP

Investments and Movements!

2010-01-17T06:57:00.000-08:00

A funny pic done by a m8 (i say m8!) on EMS from the trip to the Espana FTP tourny in August where im pulling a horrific pose.

Txt relates to a hand i posted.

Quite an ez one.

Poker Stars $400.00 No Limit Hold'em - 2 players - View hand 481482
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN/SB): $400.00
BB: $400.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN/SB with J 8
Hero raises to $8, BB calls $4

Flop: ($16.00) T 3 T (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $12.00, BB calls $12

Turn: ($40.00) 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $34.00, BB calls $34

River: ($108.00) 7 (2 players)
BB bets $55.00, Hero calls $55

Final Pot: $218.00
Hero shows J 8
BB shows 5 3
Hero wins $217.50
(Rake: $0.50)

So tomorrow me and my m8 move into a London flat in Kensal rise (about 3 stops from the Vic) Its a fairly long trip from Durham but we've done a few of these before so im used to it now. Got a 12 month tenancy agreement so should be sweet been in London again. We even have a reasonably sized garden which is great for the summer with the world cup so there is potential for epic BBQ's for England matches.

This month ive began investing my money as i had far too much just sitting in a standard bank account. In total ive invested over £17.5k in savings accounts, GOv/Corp bonds and shares on the stock market. Luckily my brother is a financial adviser so i'd like to think it will be profitable. Ive gone for a balanced portfolio with a 3:2:1 ratio on the above to minimise risk. within that ive further broken the investment types down. With my shares ive invested the majority in Blue chip companies (listed in ftse 250) which are unlikely to fluctuate. Ive also invested in the AIM (Alternate Investment Market) which is higher risker, but potential for greater returns (swongs yo!) If i can churn out a small profit for the year i'll be happy.

Poker is mehhhhhh :(. Reached the 70bi's below EV market and 7 consectutive months below EV fml. Im definately playing bad now but i can't be too angry with myself because its going to happen. Playing your "A" game when going through a bad run is hard and unobtainable i believe. HU ive been doing pretty well, and over the next few days im going to be busy with sorting our new flat out so will probably just grind a few sessions of HU here and there. I do want to visit the Vic and play some 2/5 before i go to UKIPT. Dont play too much live poker but its good fun and i'll need the practice before donkament crushing. Bought in for UKIPT Manchester over the phone a few days ago. Also got a decent deal on a penthouse, sharing with Bas,Jagz and Gawa so should be fun.

Should update at the end of the month.

Caio

JP

Farewell 09 and hellloooooooo '10

2009-12-30T12:58:00.000-08:00

Short blog. Pretty much finished for year so may aswell publish results. So i finshed up about $80k from cash+ $20-25k from RB too make it a not too shabby $100k year. Last few months have sucked and i fell about $20k short of my yearly goal but it beats a 9-5 im sure.

Goals for '10 are.

1) 600k hands minimum.
2) Play more HU (depends how if the action deteriorates like it did for 09)
3) $150k cash game profit/200k net profit. (Starting off at 2/4 for a couple of months before mixing limits from 2/4-5/10 depending how well things are going)
4) Leave the country at least 3 times next year (EPT snowfest in Austria, march time and vegas in summer plus maybe a non-poker holiday)
5) Cash in a live donkament.

Think im moving back to London for '10 which is exciting. January i'll be taking it easy since the games usually suck with all the SNE chasers and ive suffered a little burnout the last few months. Aim is to play around 30k hands with plenty of HU action.

Happy New year all,

JP

December Update

2009-12-16T01:17:00.000-08:00

So far this month ive grinded like a mofo (by my measely terms anyway). Ive managed to put in 27.5k hands in 16 days which im pretty pleased with. Profit is at a mighty $300 :P. Im quite happy how ive played, particularly this last week which is maybe why im not really tilted. Im definitely one of those people who gets tilted more by my own mistakes than coolers and bad beats which i think is slightly more healthy in an insane world.

At the weekend i played a lot of 3/6 (2k+ hands) as the games were fantastic. There was usually at least 1 fullstacked drooler and a couple of half stack droolers at each table so i thought it was too good a spot to miss. Unfortunately as you can guess things did not go so well and i think i dropped 4/5 stacks, where i did little wrong such is the nature of the rigged level 3/6 :P

Here are some of the hands:

www.pokerhand.org/?4986195 Pretty standard flip against a regular.

www.pokerhand.org/?4986198 This is one hand i probably shouldn't have got it in with when he 3bets my UTG. villian is a laggy 27/22 but has a reasonable 3bet 5%. I usually peel in these spots unless i have a specific read when not in steal positions to 4bet and call it off but i doubt its too horrible.

www.pokerhand.org/?4986202 Villian here is a 25/50 reg usually and up around 1/2 million in cash games. He was 3 betting a ton IP against me. I think 4bettting might be ok too but since i was suited i decided to just peel. Dont think i can fold what i figured was a dream turn.

www.pokerhand.org/?4986207 Villan was 38/15 drooler with a 13% fold to 3bet. I hate the fact he open shipped the turn but i dont think i can fold with the Ks, since i doubt he open shoves Nut flush on the turn. His post flop Agg freq was pretty high aswell.

www.pokerhand.org/?4986213 Tough to crack AJ of blue IMO.

www.pokerhand.org/?4986214 cooler

www.pokerhand.org/?4986216 Got to admire his preflop sizing and my table selection.

www.pokerhand.org/?4986221 Dont think i can do much here.

In the 2k hands or so i was only able to stack 1 guy with a set vs overpair, other than that i was feeding on scraps.

Any feedback on the hands will be appreciated. I tried to hyperbole the links for 45mis but i fail athe internet and the internet doesn't like me so apologies for the inconvience.

So 3/6 didnt go well to say the least but i definitely have to take a shot at those games when they are that juicy. Im hoping the games will be good closer to xmas to take some more shots and hopefully things turn around.

I only need to grind another 12k vpps to reach my $4k milestone which is <20k hands so getting volume in is no longer my primary concern. Just need to keep playing solid and finish the year on a positive.

Gl at the tables

JP

Quick Update

2009-12-02T10:54:00.000-08:00

Novemeber was a meh month, ended up $2.5k + $2k rb in 49.7k hands. I need to grind approx 45k hands in December to hit the 400k vpp milestone bonus which should be obtainable. Problem is my confidence is ridiculously low. Of my 1st 3 sessions this month, ive been insta stuck 1 or 2bi's in my 1st 50 hands and just decided to quit early as i just know things will not end well. I guess its something of a self fulfilling prophecy, but the grind has simply worn me down and i no longer trust myself to be tilt free.

My cash game target of $100k profit for the year is near impossible now as ive barely made a penny in 2 months. My total profit exceeds $100k which is great in a vacuum, but i havent enjoyed the past 6 months at all and will be looking to take a break or at least not exceed 20k hands in January. Im $24k under EV (60 bi's)in this period and currently on a 100k hand BE run.

I here what your saying " You made xxx this year and ure on an emo rant". This is true but money is all relative and for those who advance or i guess drop in stakes will realise this in due course.

On a positive note im back in Durham on sunday. Glad to wave goodbye to Cardiff since it never stops raining and my flatm8 has worked pretty redic hours, and since i know no-one else in Cardiff ive felt isolated at times during weekdays. Given the choice again i wouldn't have come to Cardiff but hey you live and learn. Looking forward to getting blind drunk and not been an emo when i hear tails from friends of terribly boring, mundane office jobs.

Also check out this badugi website my m8 has worked on, isnt much badugi material on the net so its well worth a read for u triple draw wizards!

Badugi Poker Tips

JP

Blackpool (aka shithole) GUKPT

2009-11-19T11:31:00.001-08:00

I arrived on the Thursday and had a few beers with the EMS boys, before getting ready to play day 1b. Online hadn't been going great and i hadn't sold any of my action for this event, so i naturally was hoping for epic binkage and had a feeling i was guna ship big. It kicked off at 2pm, and i would like to sit here and type that i made it to the 1st break (2 hours) but that would be a lie.

I guess i was on the feature table and i didnt recognise any of the players. As it turned out it was probably the softest table of around 175 runners on day 1b. Nonetheless im terrible enough to only last 90mins. The hand which was to be my downfall was the following:

2nd orbit level 1, old geezer limps MP, i iso 3.5k with AQss, bb flats and we go 3way to a flop. flop is 3 4 10 (2 spade flop) bb leads for 3/4 pot or so, original limper folds and i opt to just flat IP (1st Mistake- Since i had seen this guy check back the nuts JK on a 9 10 Q action flop before to get value on last two streets so hes obviously terrible) At this point i figure he has a mid pp/gutterball/medium FD hand doing that "live" trick where they find out where they stand.

Turn brings something of a blank (think it was an 8) and he checks so i fire planning to bomb nearly every river. He tanks and makes the call. At this point im thinking "wtf are you doing u massive mouth drooler". River i fade again and its a huge brick pairing the board (3 i think). He then proceeds to lead the river for a little over 1/2 pot. I tank for ages thinking how terrible this guy is and contemplating the fact he may have a worse draw which is feasible (like a 56ss or 67ss) before calling and been told " Your good". I turn over AQ rather proudly only for the huge ape to go "oooooo i got the Q10". GG wp nh sir. Now die in a waterfall.

I struggled from here on in and was getting owned it seems in every pot (almost definitely just the top of there range etc etc) where id fire 2 barrels with TP and get raised on the turn to be shown the epic combination of gutterball peeling and binkage.

I was down to around 40bb's when i opened JJ utg, old geezer 3bet the btn and i kinda sigh-caked. I tank for a while for the 2nd time of the day. I had seen him tarp KK with a call previously so i was maybe wishfully thinking he had AK. Also my image was rediculously loose as i had played and lost a number of pots.I looked at the clock and saw the blinds were goin up in 20 mins and i would be nursing a <<20bb stack if i folded. So i got it in and he has the bottom of his 3betting range (AA). First card i see is a J ( Boom i think!) before the Ace peels as the 2nd card.

gg life.

Had a really fun weekend nonetheless. Dropped £200 in an EMS cash game, where we included the 72 game. Bas managed to bink a 300bb pot 72o>>AA AIPF vs Palmer haha.
Managed to make about tree-fiddy (£300 really but tree fiddy sounds cooler) in a £1/2 casino cash game, to restore a tiny shread of confidence to my fragile game. Also congrats to Steve Talbot for his 5th place finish. By all accounts he played brillant and im sure this score will help him progress to levels more suiting his skill level.

Since ive got back things are still going pretty badly. Ive played 12k hands in 4 days or so for a little over $1k. My redline is plummeting which is very worrying as ive always been a winning redline player. Its possible im just fading every draw and making huge laydowns when villans get there on the river, but with how things have been goin for around 6 weeks its very likely im playing weak tight.

It really is the time to take a pro-longed break but, im really close to clearing a $4k bonus and am only 49k vpps from the 400k vpp milestone which i have a $500 propbet on to reach. So i kinda feel obliged to play to make this $9k even though i really dont think im in a great frame of mind to grind. If things don't pick up profit wise, i am giving serious consideration to shortstacking for the last 2 weeks of December to reach 400k vpps. I figure i should be able to 16 table short-staking and it will be easier to reach than 8 tabling full stacked and playin the streets. Obviously this would be bad form on my behalf but its only for 2 weeks and i see no other option at present other than gaining my confidence back.

I'll update at the end of the month for results of November

Gl at the tables all

JP

Downswonging pretty hard.

2009-11-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

Title says it all really. From around the 20th October since i got back from Bristol, ive been on my biggest downswing approx $12k and am b/e over my last 60k hands. Part of this was unsuccessful shot-taking, playing pretty bad and not running too good. Ive struggled to put together decent winning sessions. Im still in a decent mind-frame and hopefully things will turn around soon.

Unfortunately this could mean i dont hit my $100k cash game profit goal for the year as at present im just under $25k short so its unlikely i'll get there but you never know. This month ive played 18k hands already (Grinding hard, obv means trying to rostucko :P) for a loss of around -$280 which isn't much. Obviously this downswing coincides with clearing the $4k cash bonus.

On Thursday im going to Blackpool to play the GUKPT ME. Figured theres nothing quite like chasing losses, by playing a £1k live donkament :P. Should be a good laugh as theres a bunch of people i know going so hopefully i or sum1else i know who is playing can make a deep run.

Hopefully my next blog will mark either a massive heater or a big Gukpt ship. Meh maybe even both! im not greedy.............

JP

Bristol £550+50 Coral poker masters.

2009-10-29T10:04:00.000-07:00

On saturday i made the hour long train journey to Bristol, to play the Coral poker masters Bristol Leg. Previoua events had around 80 runners so i figured it might be good value. I arrived at my hotel around 1:45pm before heading to the casino to buy in. Kick off was to be 3pm

To my surpise when i got there it had sold out! 140 runners had already registered before me(160 after all the alternates), but fortunately i was 2nd on the alternates list so it wasn't really too much of a problem. The tournament had a decent structure 1hr clock and 10k starting chips.

45 minutes into the tournament and i get the call and take my seat. I dont think i played a hand for 1/2 orbits partly due to getting dealt trash and finding out how people are playing. As it turns out i have a young internet pro to my immediate left, which isnt ideal as hes playing 30% pots and very aggressively so i nit it up a little. I played a few pots here and there taking them down with c/bets and little resistance in the main.

1st key hand i raise QQ in MP at 50/100. i get two callers from the blinds. flop is Q 5 3 but all spades so i fire out a largish c/bet, and get one caller. Unfortunately the turn brings the 4th spade and i check behind hoping for the board to pair which it doesn't and im forced to fold a 3/4pot river bet. Id expect most players to c/r sets on that board so i think he has As alot. Later it turns out hes quite a bad player but with the info available to me at the time i think its an OK fold. THe next hand of note i flop a set 4 way with 6's on a J K 6 board two hearts but get no action as orginal raiser bet/folds and shows QQ.

About 5/6 levels in and i find myself shortish with 15bb's due to facing resistance with c/bets and card dead, so i was looking for good re-shipping spots and opening quite tight. Luckily i looked down at AA in the SB after a tightish btn opens. I ship it in and then the BB (who has 12bb's, tilting after bluffing off 75bb's or so) overcalls. Btn mucks and BB shows A4o, which i think is really bad and i hold.

So with a half decent stack of around 25-30bb's 7-8 levels in and 80 players left or so i get moved to a new tbl. The tbl is very weak tight, so i find myself opening a ton of pots since antes have properly kicked in and facce little resistance. Things do however start to go downhill, i had been opening liberally and opened JKss UTG. i get 3bet by UTG+2 so i fold and he shows AK. Later in the same orbit i open J2dd in the CO vs a very tight bb who decides to c/r a flop which i whiff and leaves me with the dreaded 15bigs and around 45 players left.

My exit hand was pretty standard. A competent northern european opened the CO and i re-shipped 88 with 14bb's from the btn. He calls and shows 99 and the board doesnt improve my hand. I went out in 45th around 25 from the money. I played pretty well and if things went well when i tried to change gears when the antes kicked in i could of made a deep run with a stroke of luck. £25k up top, but wasn't to be this time. I enjoyed it thoroughly and will be playing GUKPT Blackpool next month to get my live poker fix!

Online has been pretty rough recently. I took a shot at 10/20 earlier this week which didnt go well and im on a $6k downswing or so. So im up just under $10k+RB this month in 42k hands. On a positive note im crushing 2/4 HU, but just need to figure out the code to break the riggedness of 3/6.

GL at the tables all

JP

Little Update

2009-10-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

Put a decent grind in so far this month. Played just over 35k hands for just under $16k profit so far which im pretty pleased with. My redline is +8k or and im running slightly above EV so im probs running like jesus. Ive also shipped just $2k in W$ playin PCA/EPT sats and taking the W$.

On Saturday im making the short journey back into England to play the £500 coral masters poker tour event in Bristol. Its not got a bad structure and should only get around 80 runners so hopefully either myself or bas can get a lucky break. 1 time plz dealer!

jp

Warning: rant ITT!

2009-10-08T11:45:00.001-07:00

This blog post is just going to be a rant about HU pokerz!

Recently ive tried to play more HU pokerz as it is easily more fun than the 6 max grind. However the state of HU games has changed drastically over the last 18months or so. If u open the stars lobby on any given weekday u will find 30 or so 2/4 HU tbls open and usually only 3/4 running. Bumhunting has been taken to a whole new level and its killing the game. I PTR'd most of the guys and only a handful were big winners whilst the rest were b/e or small winners, fighting over the scraps of fish that trickle of to 2/4. I do exercise table selection myself as i wont play the biggest winners since ive only played 9k HU hands at 2/4 lifetime, but almost all will simply not play in the hope than a drooler randomly clicks open there table.

Ive probably played 100k hands HU lifetime mainly at (1-2) and hit and running has always been the standard by fish and some regs, i never used to let it effect me, but these days i get pretty pissed about it (probably because ive waited 90mins, for sum1 to win a >$200 pot and insta quit).

I don't even know if im a winner at 2/4 HU yet because there is never any action. Im going to concentrate on 6max for the coming months and shipping 400k vpp's b4 the end of the year.

September finished with a little heater and i finished $11.1k up + about $2k RB which once a decent effort considering how i ran. October has started in similar vein, up around $8k in 13k hands and im running 12bi's above EV so im probably not playing amazing but meh. After 60bi's below in 3 months i'll take it.

GL tbls all

JP

Wake me up when september ends!

2009-09-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

Well September has been something of a washout after a promising 20days or so. Nearly 30bi's below EV and i tilted like a mofo one nite at 2/4 HU against sum1 playin 87/79 with a 43% 3bet and lost 10bi's in no time (can you guess where on the graph this occured?). I mean surely if i tilt like a mofo vs a 87/79 fish A/K high's and any pair will be ahead of his range.He is also a semi-regfish and huge loser according to PTR but everytime he stacked me he would make a "humerous" remark which i somehow refrained from replying. I have howevver been making remarks in the chatbox recently which i shouldn't but ive just been going through a rough patch.
When im up and running again i'll definately hunt him down as i have sum really good reads now.

Ive taken a few shots at 3/6-5/10 this month which have gone ok. I was insta stuck 2k at 5/10 after AK<<10 AIPF against aggro fish and losing K7Here are a few of my biggest winning and losing hands this month:
Winners
1. http://www.pokerhand.org/?4736151 I have a pair vs a maniac fish. Not folding ever
2.http://www.pokerhand.org/?4736160 spazzy reg spazzes again
3.http://www.pokerhand.org/?4736162 against the mental fish again
Looking through my DB there arent many interesting winning handsm but there are some hillarious osing hands
1.http://www.pokerhand.org/?4736164 My biggest ever losing pot. Just 4bet jammed cos he was a whale and him flatting my 4bet IP would suck.
2.http://www.pokerhand.org/?4736171 This hand is vs a reg. His bet sizing is terrible throughout and its pretty lol to think that K7o is profitable to open vs me bvb.
3.http://www.pokerhand.org/?4736177 Im not sure if hes betting for value or as a bluff. Im playin all overpairs and a high % of sets in this manner HU. Guess i got towned.
4.http://www.pokerhand.org/?4736189 . Without doubt the most hillarious hand of the month.
All in all ive really struggled to deal with this month. Its certaintly the worst ive run since october/November last yr and ive struggled to shake it off the past few days as its my 1st 8k downswing. One positive is the volume i guess and im on course for my 1st 50k hand month!
Im moving to Cardiff for 8 weeks at the weekend in a sick condo, so that should be fun.
Goals for October

1. 45k hands
2. 5k hands minimum of HU
3.5k hands of shot-taking 3/6-5/10
4. $15K profit+

Im currently on 294k vpps so only need 6k or so to reach the $3k vpp milestone and im nearly at 200k fpp's so should start clearingn the 250k fpp $4k bonus in October.
I decided not to go to Barcelona since i didnt win a seat and have a few bits and bobs to sort out for moving to cardiff so decided to spend a week and abit at home. I'll probably play the Coral Masters in brizzle next month just for giggles and a live event.

GL all

JP x

Overdue Update IYAM.

2009-09-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

Pokerwise August ended pretty meh where i ended up +$9k + RB for the month, although i was up 9k after my 1st 10 days or so. Obv going a little emo here but i was fairly disappointed, as despite having a good few months my HEM showed me down 35bi's ($12k) below EV since July and i feel ive definately been running as bad as last November but im just not as bad as i was back then and im still making decent enough money not to be pissed too much :P

September started in the same vein until saturday, where ive played about 8k hands since for $11k profits (weeeeeeeeeeeee). Its a pretty sick heater but id like to think its due. This game is so god damn dellusional how your thoughts and mindset changes, its differcult to predict one week to the next. Ive now been playin 400nl for over 120k hands and feel like im doing pretty well running at 2.75bb/100 which im sure is in the top 10% at this level. Ive also started and plan to play sum more 3/6 over the coming weekends or if i spot decent games. Im really happy with my progress thus far and well on course for my targeted $100k cash profit this year (B4 RB)

I still haven't played any WCOOP events yet. Mainly because my lust for mtt's has dissappeared completely (thank god!) and everytime i contemplate the idea of entering i know i'll get bored and donk out 2 hrs in or summit. I really dont have the concentration and patience to grind thru big fields although i mite play the $1k 2day event on sunday if i feel the urge to donate to the mtt community. Im also most likely to go to Barcelona to play the FTP espana series from 28th altho i haven't satted in i mite buy in and sell sum action or just go to top up my tan and watch boobies on the beach and not play the tournament.

IRL it looks like im going to be moving to Cardiff next friday for 2-3 months. My flatm8 has a job in film (Ironclad) there and i said id go for the crack as ive heard good reports about the city and we have the most baller pad ever. 5 star complex with swimming pool/gym/sauna etc etc facilites overlooking the bay which should be sweet. We will probs leave early December time and return to Durham for Xmas which is ideal, while new year we'll likely head back down to London and maybe live in East London which has a more up and coming scene than where we live at the moment.

Hopefully get an update in b4 Barcelona but who knows...........

gl all

JP

Torrequebrada Trip report!

2009-08-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

I arrived at our villa to meet bas and jono last monday afternoon after flying in from Birmingham. After a few hours sleep we went out for a few beers before, the other two lads sharing our villa affrokjell and welsh will arrived. The first 2/3 nights we spent getting pretty drunk drinking till 7-8 in the morning which im pretty sure is ideal leading up to a tournament.

By the time Friday evening came round i was ready to play a little live pokerz.The field had 208 runners with a 1st prize of €110k. I took my seat to which i was extremely pleased. There were 3 females at the tbl, 2 of which to my immediate right (Ship the blinds! :P) and alot of older spanish guys. There was 1 young scandi at the tbl but he was at the other side so no problems there.

A couple of hands in i get QQ in the sb after about 4 limps. I make a 6/7x raise or so and get 1 caller. Flop is 678 2 tone, i cbet 2/3 pot and get insta raised 3.5x my cbet so i hit the muck. It turns out the guy is a huge whale so i think its an ok fold, but this was to set the pattern for my tournament. Nothing else really of note for a few levels other than the play is terribble with a mixture of 10x raises pre and insane limp action. early in level 3 the whale opens for 10x the btn 3bets and i look down in SB to see QQ. sighhhhhhhhhhhhh i muck, fish calls and folds an 8 high flop, 3 bettor shows deem aces.

I then get AKhh otb. same fish limps who's now accumilated a nice stack running hotter than the sun. I isolate his limp and go to a 347hh flop. I cbet he flats, turn is A spades. I decide to check behind as i have the deck pretty crushed and he will be peeling so light he cant take the heat of a 2nd barrel and mite payoff on river. River is 5c. sighhhhh, he pots the river i fold he shows 68o for the nuts.

For the next few levels my stack dwindles down to around 12k from 20k starting stack at 150/300. 3 limps i 5x KK limper UTG shoves, i snap he has 66 and i hold. I manage to get my stack up to around 29k going into last 2 levels of the day which is just above average and put me in good shape for day 2 with 160 left.

Its around 4am at this point goin into final level and im pretty tired and bored. I look down to see Q9dd otb and raise to 1.25k at 250/500/50. Unfortunately i didnt realise UTG limped so i end up getting called by both blinds and orignal limper.
Flop comes a pretty awesome 37kddd. Checks to me and i cbet about 3k into a 5k pot, SB folds and BB asks how much i got behind so i spread my stack and he just flats, whilst UTG folds. At this point hes made it hugely obvious he has Ad but i have a 26k stack and he has around the same. Turn is a blank i cant quite remember i bet 8.7k into around an 11k pot leaving about 12k behind. He tanks for ages before calling. River is the dreaded diamond and he leads for about 3k into 40k pot so i make the call and he shows Adkx. I think my turn betsizing is bad in hindsight,i shoudld either bet smaller like 5k or just ship it in. At this point i had the sympathy of the lady to my left anyway who berated the other guy after anyway lol (she was a scouser!) The misery ended a few hands later when UTG limped BTN iso raised and i shipped in KK for around 16-18bb's. The guy gave me a gentle slowroll with Aces but i couldn't be arsed to rant. I was on tilt from the Q9 hand before really and resigned to the fact i was guna donk out instead of coming into day 2 as a ss.

I made some pretty huge laydowns for me throughout and ran pretty terrible. The field was softer than anything ive played b4 and even I was hugely +EV. Everyone in the villa (Apart from Will) + John Eames went out day1 including Affrokjell in the 1st hour on the feature tbl (LOL).

The next 2 days was spent been sick as i had sum kind of food poisoning time illness along with Jono and Will. I finally plucked up the energy to rail Will as he hit the FT and eventually shipped €32k of which i had 5% of so not a completely wasted trip :P. Final tbl was pretty dull to watch but i was chuffed for Will as the money really is a lot to him and gives him a good chance to build a roll.

So with 1/2 hr sleep in 2 days i went to the airport and eventually arrived back in London Monday afternoon.

Ive grinded online a decent amount since which has gone pretty terrible. Running terrabad at the mo, so my month sits at about +$6k in 25k hands. Plans for the next few weeks consist of grindin alot online and maybe playing GUKPT Cardiff but i'll make a decision closer to the time.

gl at the tbls all

JP

What a weird month!

2009-08-03T09:56:00.001-07:00

Well July was very frustrating even though i made decent enough profits, I feel like i ran really badly with numerous coolers of boats vs quads, getting setmined in 3 bet pots and generally gettin in cooler spots pre. The month got off to a flyer and the rest of the time was pretty frustrating. I was on roughly a $6k downswing at one point (easily my biggest to date) b4 i shipped a much need $4k day to recover towards the end of the month.

August has started ok im up about $2k mainly down to shippin 8bi's at HU in 500 hands yesterday.Feel like im playin poorly now at 6max and calling down way to light with stuff like 3rd pair to 3 barrels from abc regs.I'll maybe play more HU this month i think, especially with been out in Spain and not having a monitor available. Im sure if i can put 50k hands in $15k profits is pretty attainable if i run ok. (/me prays to the poker gods)

Last night i watched the p/stars stream where i watched Matt Perrins take down the Italian poker tour Venice event for €150k+. Must admit just watching it kinda got me excited for the Malaga event which i'll be flying out for on Monday. I intend to update when im out there but if im hungover in a ditch sumwhere i'll post a trip report on my return.

Peace x

JP

Viva Espana!

2009-07-20T08:44:00.001-07:00

Last week i managed to ship a $3k package to play the Fult tilt poker Espana tour in Malaga.Played pretty well around the bubble so happy to finally secure a seat and a nice little holiday for the middle of August.

Cash games have gone ok this month. I was up $10k in my 1st 8k hands this month, but have b/e for the rest of the month. Sessions have followed a similar pattern, of getting stuck around $2k (2/4) and robustoing back to near b/e. Im playin pretty well in general but have begun to spew sum so need to pull the reins in. So far ive put in around 31k hands which is decent so i think 45k hands is possible, although ive got friends from home coming down for a week 2moro so probs wont put many hands in this week.

I'll try and post sum hands for my next blog to highlight my recent spewing exploits.

JP

Time fly's by when your running good!

2009-07-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

With just over half the year gone i supposed its a good time to recap on the 1st 6months of the yr. In an earlier blog i outlined the following goals for 2009:

1) play 40-50k hands per month. For the 1st 6months this yr my monthly avg is 39.5k hands per month. However in January i only played 30 and every other month i have played in excess of 40, with June been my biggest hand count month just short of 50k hands. Ive definately improved my volume now playin 1500 hand sessions as opposed to 600-800 i was playin at the start of the year.

2) Make $100k cash game profit+ RB. So far im slightly behind pace with this although im already up $5k this month and mainly playing 2/4 so its definately attainable. So at the midway point im at around $43k+RB (between $8-10k so far this yr)

3)Play more live donkaments. So far ive only really played the £1k WSOP 5day event structure which i did enjoy as a break from the online grind. I also intend to play the FTP espana series in Malaga in August and will try and play 1 or 2 GUKPT's b4 the yr is out. I'll maybe try and sat in online to EPT comps.

4) Play more HU and less 6max. This has kinda been an epic fail. My hu game isnt great at the moment and i had a losing month last month (HU only) so ive played less as my confidence is fairly low. Ive gone from a 11bb/100 winner over a 75k hand sample to probably a b/e player in my last 20k hands (ridic small samples i know but its all i can compare to) However my 6 max has gotten alot stronger and i feel im in the top 5-10% of players at the levels i play on stars.

5)Score a big 4 or 5figure donkament cash. This yr ive played very few donkaments (certainly <<100). I did manage the huge luckbox in the turbo so im happy with that score and doubt i'll eclipse that as i have no intention to really grind them out apart from the odd sunday. I will play Wcoop events so maybe i can luckbox a decent score in September time.

July has started well. in just under 11k hands im up $5k, would be nice to hit another 5 fig month but i'll just concentrate on getting the volume in and playing to a consistently high level.

Life in general is going well and it looks likely that i'll be staying in London to xmas time and maybe longer.....who knows

JP

Luckboxing June!

2009-06-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update

So just over week ago i was feeling a little under the weather and unable to grind the cash.I then entered the donkaments of all donkaments, a super turbo and managed to ship it. Ran insanely well, binking various gutterballs along the way although i felt i played the FT very well and managed to KO all 5 on the last table. I also managed a 3rd place in he $55 6max on stars while at the gutshot with Sang for just short of $1k, so my ROI has definately had a massive upswong although i dont think ive played more than 10 mtt's this month.

Cash games have been great also, with decent volume. So far for June im up $13k in cash within 39k hands. Ive played quite alot of 2/4 this month and made around $8k of my profits here which is pleasing. Earlier in the month i also purchased $2.5k cash credits in FPP's and am only 4k vpps from the $2k milestone bonus, which puts me on course for my 1st $25k month. My previous best was March where i made around $15k net so obviously im delighted with this.

Life in general is going good, been living in London for around 5 weeks and i cant say ive missed home 1 bit so far. Going to try and win a seat in the coming weeks for the Espana FTP series Live donkament in Malaga mid august time, and may play the £300 at DTD early next month but im undecided at the mo.

JP

DTD £1k trip report

2009-06-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

Well before the event began there was a little a somewhat unexpected £50k+ overlay with around 192 entrants ensuring a first prize of around £84k IIRC. I was really excited before the start of play and once i was at the table for a few orbits i began to feel settled. Day 1 was rather uneventful on my behalf, i was pretty card dead throughout so had a rocky image and my table was actually really solid (Especially compared to some of the stories about the action on other tables!) I took down a few pots with C/bets etc but in general didnt get out of line (apart from 3betting a CO open OTB with 22 :P)

The live RNG was particularly rigged on day 1 however where we managed to see 3 sets over set and KK V AA with no one going broke, which is a measure of how good the structure of the tournament was and how cautious the live game plays. One hand involved Henning Gradstad (GUKPT Newcastle finalist and mulitple WSOP cashes) raising 88 utg and been flatted by an Irish dude UTG+1.

Flop came a pretty harmless 3 6 8 two diamonds. Henning c/bet, Irish nit raised Henning(probably has the loosest image at the table at this point) jammed and Irish gezzer goes into the tank for about 8 mins b4 calling with 66 and having Henning covered. I was convinced this was a slowroll, but Henning tabled 88 for top set vs middle set. Everyone at the table was saying how they could probably fold bottom set in that spot to which i sat blank faced in bewilderement at the table chat.

I was allin at one point on day 1, I raised UTG with 15k stack and AK whilst a new guy to table calls from BB. Flop comes 34 k 2 hearts.He donks 1.2k, i raise 3.2k he flats. The turn brings a J of hearts and he insta jams. I tank for like 5mins thinking live pro's are more than capable of playin a low flush this way but decided to take into account the "Moran Factor" and make the call. He tbls Ah Jd (LOL) for a flop donk/float OOP, turned NFD and 2nd pair. Im pretty sure he just viewed me as sum kid he could push around, but i got a fair bit of respect here where the players at the table couldnt believe i made the call. Day 1 finished and i had around 30k stack from 20k starting stack which was just below avg with around 60 runners gone on day 1 already.

Day 2 i picked up a few hands early on and became more active, i gradually built my stack up to around 45k within 90mins b4 i had an interesting spot.Laggy good HJ opens for 2.5x to which rocky Btn 3bets around 3x orignal raise. I look down to see JJ and decide to cold 4bet which gets through ( Later found out LAG had AK and rock had AQ and ended up finishing 2nd for £45k). The tbl dynamics by mid afternoon day2completely changed also. A huge whale running hotter than the sun joins the tbl and is limping into every pot(sum old guy with to much business wealth apparently).So bascially the action tames down alot and consists of isolating the fish etc etc. I even managed to flop top set vs him but he insta mucks an action 6 9 J flop FMMFL. John Kalmar later joins my tbl which was pretty cool. I raised UTG+1 2.5x the blinds with 33 which happens to be Kalmars BB which i was told previously by a friend is defended vigoursl. flop comes J 10 2, Kalmar checks i c/bet and he folds showing 93hh giving me a gentle rubdown about how if i make stupid little raises pre hes guna defend with trash which i thought was funny. He did seem a really nice guy though.

My exit hand was pretty sick where i finished in 68th. fish limps in MP at 300/600/75,SB a TAG reg at DTD iso's to around 2.1k. I wake up with qq and have around a 40k stack whilst the reg has me covered. I 3bet to around 7.2k, fish passes and SB flats. Flop comes 4 6 9 2diamonds, SB checks i look to see if i have Qdiamonds which i do b4 betting 11.8k. SB insta jams i sighcake, but with 1/2 my stack already in pot with 60bb b4 hand i decide he can have TT/JJ/ random draws/overs enough of the time to be in good shape however he flips 99 and its a good night for me on day2.

Overall thought it was a great structure and was pleased with how i played. Im sure i couldof had a deep run if i win that pot but meh till next time..........

JP

London Baby!

2009-05-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

My blogging has been pretty lame lately so heres a quick update.

On friday i finally made the moved down south on friday. Me and a friend from home are living in West London (Acton area) until the summer and have a really nice deal on a flat is which has just been re-decorated and fully furnished. This weekend we've just been sorting flat stuff out and getting accustomed to the area. We did however get out to see the footy in Ealing to see Newcastle get relegated :P good times!

2moro im heading to Notts to play the £1k, 250k-5day event. Will be rooming with the lunchbox bas and am really looking forward to playin wot is comfortably my biggest live tournament. The structure is amazing with a 2hr clock and 20k starting chips so im sure my biggest challenge will be patience and enduring the long hours since online i only usually play 2 hrs at a time.

Online pokerwise April was my worst month since Nov 07. I finished down around $2k and playing 200nl again. May has been decent though, up around $5k in cash and $1.5k from WSOP sats in around 40k hands. Ive even managed to drop $2k at 2/4. Im 99% confident i'll be a winner at 2/4 but i need to adjust alittle quicker. Stars have also put on an awesome promo for Uk players giving them 80k vpp's if u gain 7.5k vpps this month. This is effectively worth $3k to myself as i should now be able to reach the 300k vpps $3K milestone bonus.

I'll make sure to update this blog with a DTD trip report early in June.

Gl at the tables all

JP

Overdue Update!

2009-04-20T05:10:00.000-07:00

Ive let this blog slip a little so its time to get it back on course. March was my best month ever pokerwise and i managed to book a $14.7k month + RB which was really sweet in 45k hands at a mix of 1/2 -2/4 on stars. This month started off with me grinding solely 2/4 but about a week ago i dropped $2.4k in a session so have moved down temporarily to grind it back. Ive only managed 17k hands so far this month which is wayyy behind pace as i took about 6days off earlier in the month to play sum poker in nottingham (meet up with jeffchef and bas) before heading down to London for a long weekend. Until last night i was actually $2.4k down for the month until i hit a purple patch and made $1.8k in 1k hands at 1/2 HU.So now im around $750 down for the month but im pretty happy with the way ive handled the break-eveness. In a couple of sessions i had $3k swongs (both for the worse) and i was pretty pleased i was able to just shrug it off. It seems I have a better grasp of how big variance is in todays tougher games and at the end of March it was likely a tougher month was likely in store for April.

So for the rest of the month i intend to try and grind out 15k hands at least online at 1/2-2/4, hopefully bringing my month into marginal profit but we'll see. Stars have also just added WSOP sats today so its my intention to maybe grind the sats to the $650 sunday qualifers on mondays/tuesdays when the ring games arent so good and either sell the $W or play the $650 as id imagine these are super soft like the EPT sats and definitely a bankroll booster.

Outside the realms of online poker i went to Nottingham to meet up with bas and jeffchef for a little live poker before heading down to London. I only stayed for 2 nights, the 1st of which me and bas grinded the $500 6max SCOOP which i had a fairly deep run in although the payout was only around 2.5x the BI amount :(. The structure was pretty awesome and i built a pretty big chipstack playing alittle too gung-ho before dropping to 1k at 100/200.Amazingly i won about 4 flips in a row running insanely good before being a mincash warrior!

The Thursday night we went to DTD. Bas and Jeff played the £50 crapshoot and i just played sum £1/2 cash sitting £500 deep. The table was absolutely incredible, there was 3 huge whales who must of been playin 85/0 in my 2hr stint at the tbl. There was also a Nottingham Forest footballer (i forget his name) who's standard open was too £20 (10xbb) and then he would still often get 4/5 callers. I managed to stack the fish for just short of £600. 6 limpers gets round to my bb so i pump up the action to £16 with JJ and recieve 3 callers.The board runs out a pretty harmless 3d 5s 9c i bet £52 into a pot of about £70 and recieve 2 callers, the turn is a 5h. I thought its possible its given sum1 trips but also these whales cant wipe the drool from there chin and are probs peeling extremely light with gutterballs so i jammed. 1st guy folded and the greek looking fish snapped it off with the river a blank 7x and he shows A9 in a rather "OMG such a badbeat fashion" to go bust with a pair of 9's 150bb deep. Nothing of any real note happens apart from playin extremely tight and taking a few small pots before leaving just over £300 in profit. It was strangely differcult as i could never get in a pot HU or with just 2 players so there so it becomes pretty differcult to win a hand without having the best of it at showdown which isnt ideal, but my experience of live cash games is that they are really fishy and even the regs have fundamental technical leaks.There edge probably comes from right place right time for getting good tbl selection- almost a hustler type mentality.

I then headed down to London to meet a mate for a couple of boozy days over easter weekend. The friday was spent in Surrey and the Saturday was spenting watching the footy and jumping from pub to pub starting at Camden and ending in Trafalgar. London is pretty awesome and i do enjoy the hustle and bustle of the place. On saturday i also played golf for the 1st time since October. I had the most bizarre heater where i managed to shoot an 86 whilst my previous best was 95 so i was pretty shocked. My putting and driving were fairly solid and its noticable how much easier the game is when you aren't hacking around the bushes on the wrong fairway!

I intend to update this blog at the end of the month to record April's results so until then GL at the tables all.

JP

Up she goes!

2009-03-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

So March so far has been kind to me and pretty similar to how Febuary went. Up just under $6k with 1/2 the month left so the plan is to basically put in another 20k hands (15k-$1/2 5k $2/4) before starting April only playing 2/4. Feel like im playin well but is probably due to running good and feeling confident.Im also well over 1/2 clearing the $4k stars bonus so should hopefully get there by the end of the month, which is a great incentive to put in the hands.

Here are a few hands ive played this month:

http://weaktight.com/893815. This was my biggest pot of the month. Didnt like the turn card so i bet a fishy 1/2 pot as i wasn't sure what to do, although in hindsight i think checking behind can be ok too, when considering getting value out of his range which is unlikely to be happy with the turn card. Gin on the river tho!

http://weaktight.com/893825 Soul read!

http://weaktight.com/893834 FPS turning my hand into a bluff

Dont really have any interesting losing hands. Mostly just coolers or getting setmined by tagfish in 3bet pots. Happy days!

JP

Grind on the mind!

2009-03-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

So while im clearing my $4k bonus ive been sacrificing souls to the doomswitch demon hoping he doesn't doomswitch me, although its probably inevitable whilst clearing a stars bonus.haha!

February was kind to me, where i ended up about $9k from cash games + $1k RB on 40k hands. I ran well which is nice and its nice to feel confident when playing and getting out of the mindset of booking wins by grinding a set amount of hands in a session. Donkaments were pretty brutal as per usual and i probably B/E at best despite a $2k cash and a couple of SM cashes.Ive decided its probably best to avoid online MTT's full stop apart from SCOOP/FTOPS which will be an occasional treat. I just feel the MTT'S on stars/FTP have fields that are simply to big to justify playing, whilst the payout structures are too top heavy so finishing in the final 2 tables can leave u on life tilt with maybe 2.5-3x ure original investment which is a joke. If i ever feel the urge im more likely to play the majors on the softer/smaller networks which don't exceed 500 runners whilst the standard is without question worse.

In the real world it seems the stock market has just about crashed, i currently have nearly 4 figs in a banking companies shares reccommended by my brother (A financial adviser!). Needless to say they are worth about 1/2 of wot i bought them at which was already at an all time low point for them. Hopefully at some point the market recovers and many moons down the line i can churn a profit out of them. Hopefully when/If the market becomes morestable i might look to research stock dealing more and make a few bob buying in at good entry/exit points but at the moment its perhaps to early to say.

So March has begun and im around -$1.4k down in 2.5k hands. Ive ran bad but im not moaning its pretty much fair game given how i ran last month but im happy with how im playing. My intentions for the month are to grind out 45k hands. Recently ive decided to more actively stake MTT's players so i still get my "fix" in a peculiar sort of way. I have one player from the EMS forum whom i will be staking regularly as he seems successful from his short time playing and hopefully i can help him improve whilst we both make a little $$$ but we will see.

Away from poker, this weekend i'll be watching Durham City have an epic (potentially) title decider v Halifax Town on saturday in the Unibond 1st division before heading up to Newcastle to reunite with my uni flatmates for boozy fun, which should be good times.

Gl at the tbls all

JP

Going nicely!

2009-02-19T07:49:00.000-08:00

So Febuary has been relatively kind to me so far. Up around $7k in cash games and put it decent volume (For me anyway!) and i hope to put in another 15k hands or so before March where im unlikely to be playing as much due to other commitments. Ive played mainly 1/2 HU and 6max with a couple of thousand 2/4 hands thrown in at weekends.Of the limited 2/4 ive played it would seem that the regs spew less at 2/4 than 1/2 and have a better awareness of there percieved image.Ive also managed to reach the 250k fpp $4k bonus along with the $250 milestone bonus although these will probably take another 6 weeks or so to clear.

Not much to report on the donkaments front.Min cashed the SM again and didnt pretty rubbish in the majors i played on softer sites.So the plans are if things go well to play more and more 2/4 and hopefully move up by April full-time provided its going ok. I'll also be moving to London around the 6th March time for a couple of months so im anticipating i won't be playin so much poker next month whilst sorting everything out whilst im considering playing a few GUKPT side events towards the end of March although im told the structure ain't the best.

Here are a few hands i have played recently.
http://weaktight.com/822341.
Fairly deep villan was some crazy 84/30 maniac or something similar. Checked the turn to let him bet a random spade or protect a Q and was the easiest way of getting the money in since a ton of rivers could kill the action.

http://weaktight.com/822347.
A high is the Nuts HU.

http://weaktight.com/822349.
1/2 reg monkey spazzes out again.

http://weaktight.com/822354.
Nearly folded this. Villan was 85/30 and just split up with his G/F apparently. Id seen hiim go crazy with TPNK so i felt i had to go with it FML.

http://weaktight.com/822359
Villan was a 2+2er and my plan was to c/c 3 streets since this type of player is always 4 betting AK and his combinations of KQ are significantly reduced since i hold 2x queens. Obviously sucks to call river to split but i doubt he values shoves 99-JJ and he almost never has a K or an 8. I think his preflop is bad 100bb deep on his behalf as we have zero history and i think betting the flop is pretty marginal but meh.

Gl at the tables all

JP

Top Banana!

2009-02-09T04:49:00.001-08:00

Thought it was perhaps long overdue that i added a semi nude photo of a bird in this blog.

Poker wise ive had a really good start to Febuary. After a nasty downswing (briefly documented in previous blog post :p) Ive managed to turn it around and am up around $4k in cash games. This was obviously helped by a tilting guy at HU 1/2 who dumped me $1/2k in 120 hands! I managed to book a $2.5k win that day which was really fortunate straight after the crazy downswong.Since then ive been on a heater and this weekend i took a couple of shots at 2/4 6 max and managed to make 2bi's in 500 hands which was nice, so i will continue to take 2/4 shots at weekends until i feel more comfortable.

Ive also played few of donkaments this week mainly because of the FTOPS. Never really got anywhere in both short handed events. I did however manage to final table the $40k and ended up 7th for $1.8k ($75). Was dissapointed again going into the FT 2/9 but lost a biggish pot with AK V AJ which crippled me.Last night i only managed 1/11 cashes which was quite brutal although i epically min cashed the Sunday Million.All in all i can't complain much at a $6k week so let the heater continue imo!

Away from poker it looks like i will be moving to London with a mate from home who works in T.V for 8 weeks.Should be a good laugh and a nice change of scenery although i will have to put up with a few southern fairies! Im sure there will also be some good opportunties to play some good value live donkaments.

Here are a few hands from the week...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3834270. After looking at this hand im not 100% about my line. I only really beat KQ and i think bet bet bet/fold river is probably the best line.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3834279. Nothing much to say here other than i think the opponent was on crack at the time.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3834295. I let him use this line succesfully a hand earlier in session so was very confident he was FOS.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3834300.Turn my hand into a bluff only to find he has backdoor spades :S.This hand is very much Overkill though and i think a standard river bet as opposed to shove will be just as successful/ less expensive when i get my soul purged.

Downswonging!

2009-02-01T11:01:00.000-08:00

Currently on a nasty 15bi downswing ($3k) and my online roll is down to $17k which is like the lowest in 6 months or so. Guna chill for a few days and get my head together. GG life!

Gl at the tables all!

Ship it holla bolla! oh wait :(

2009-01-26T06:16:00.000-08:00

Ok so i haven't updated my blog in a little while so i'll start with my session yesterday.I decided to play donkaments like a true degen and fired up 10 and figured i needed to make $1k to b/e. Well a few hours in and i was still in 7 and ended up getting really deep with no FT's :(. Finished in the last 30 of the prima $60r 150k gtd (1st prize 37k) where i kind of spewed a few chips despite been CL and then shoved A9s with 11bb's and got snapped by AK.I also finshed around 25th in the Cake $109 50k gtd where i was sitting pretty in the top 5 until i 4 bet jammed AJ v the CL bvb who woke up with AQ.I also finished just outside the top 100 of the daily 125k $55 for $300.

Im pretty disappointed after eying up a $50k (lolz) day to only make around $200 profit but such is donkaments i guess and i certainly feel a big win is around the corner.

The only other donkament session i put in at the start of the month i managed to come 3rd in the prima $25r for $3k which was nice where i lost a huge flip 3 handed with QQvAK.Also like everyone i know that plays the $22 cubed on stars i managed to bubble the FT. So for 2 donkaments sessions im really happy with how im progressing as i seem to have a more balanced game than in the past so im going to keep grinding them on sundays hooping for a big win.

Cash games have also gone well this month where im definately running nicely.My volume as always has been pretty lame (around 25k hands so far) but im up around $3.5k which is nice and puts me up around $7k for the month. Ive also started taking 2/4 HU shots on prima (up around 1bi in 150 hands) and will be taking shots at 2/4 on weekends on stars from now on. Theres a general consensus that the jump from 1/2-2/4 is huge so aslong as i dont become a paranoid monkey like the rest of the 1/2 regs i have a chance of succeeding.

Here are a few interesting hands i have played this month.....

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3769811. I like my line here on a dry flop. Leading out is so string and pornat*r is a monkey who can't help himself so i managed to trap some dead money here.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3769817. He proceeded to call me a donk :(. Obv calling 4bets this deep with 6high is standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3769820. Villan must have been so pissed here haha. When he C/R this flop his hand really is polarised to FD's/sets/air and i dont give him credit for c/r AQ/AK if he slowplayed.Guess i cant blame him for calling the river since i show up with a 6 almost never.

And the losers.......

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3769828. Not much to say here other than i got owned pretty hard.

www.pokerhand.org/?3769834. Insta snapping of with AQ is standard these days.Can't complain tho!

So a good month so far and nearly made my $4k stars bonus. Roll on Febuary and gl all at the virtual felt!

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T07:04:00.000-08:00

So i lied and didnt post another blog in 08 but since today is going to be a right off im going to outline my goals today before beginning the grind tomorrow. Yesterday was a crazy good night. Watched 2many DJ's at a club in Newcastle who i thought were awesome and brought in the New year with old school friends which was cool although i was feeling under the weather and could barely speak as i had a real bad throat.

Anyway back to poker related materials and here are my "poker goals" for 09:

1.Play 40-50k hands online a month
2. Make $100k from cash games+ RB (Obv dangerous to set monetary goals but this is very possible if things go steadily at 2/4 and i progress further)
3. Play some live donkaments. Would like to play some GUKPT event and have highlighted the London leg (March time) and Newcastle leg (May time) as the events im interested in.
4. Play More HU and less 6 max. (Mainly because its my stronger game i make a better hourly and therefore it makes sense although can make u goa little insane!)
5. Score a big 4 or 5 figure donkament cash

I think my biggest leak is definately MTT's. Im probably a B/E player based on 08 but the amount of times ive blown up late in MTT's is pretty stupid. I usually have no trouble building big stacks and i used to struggle with mid-stages but now i think i need to improve my end game in order to be more successful which is obviously the most important stage. Maybe i should seek some advice from someone like Jagz7 who's "end game" is awesome when u considering how many 1sts/2nds he achieves.

Happy new year all. Good health and success for everyone IMO!

JP

Festive drunkeness!

2008-12-22T13:07:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-08T08:16:00.001-08:00

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.......

2008-12-01T07:58:00.000-08:00

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???

2008-11-18T16:36:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

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! :(

2008-10-27T17:38:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

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!