Loss of a Friend, A Break from Online...

First of all I want to start of this blog entry by paying tribute to my dear friend, Charlie Haddon (centre). Chazz very sadly committed suicide on Friday while his band, Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, were in Belgium at a music festival.

Apparently, he jumped from a telecommunications mast behind the stage shortly after the band finished their set. The reason is said to be because he severely injured a member of the crowd when performing a stage dive and was overcome with guilt. It is an incredibly sad time for his family, friends and all that loved him and his music.

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool was formed with Joe Hutchinson (right, along with Caan Kapan), a childhood friend of mine, through whom I met Charlie. Their music and popularity had really begun to take off, and deservedly so. This tragic event is a massive loss to the music world.

Charles Alexander Haddon R.I.P.

The sad loss of Charlie has made me decide to take a break from player poker online and rekindle my friendships and associations with The International. I've withdrawn the last of my dollars from PokerStars to bring my withdrawal total up to £5,000 this month. I have contacted my former boss, Barry Martin, and will be arranging to meet up with him when he returns from holiday.

Charlie's death made me think about friendships that I have lost in the past. The community and the group of friends I had at The International was a huge part of my life for a long time, I made a massive mistake while I was there and lost it. I want to rectify that and return there.

I know inevitably it will be hard at first and people will not look at me in the same way, but if I can regain their trust and friendship then I believe that will make me a happier person once more. I want to spend less time playing online and more time in the company of friends, I believe I can make just as much money live as I can online but playing live offers so much more. I miss it a great deal, The Vic just isn't the same.

Today will be the last day I play online for at least a month. I'm currently playing an $8 rebuy, I've already played some PLO cash (and lost, I don't think I'm concentrating properly). I will play the Sunday Warm-up and then that's it for a little while.

Hopefully I'll do well when I play it, it'd be nice to take it down!

ARRRGGHHHHHH!!!!

WORST. SESSION. EVER.

I just lost $2,428.70 of the $11,074.86 I had in my account in the worst session of poker I've ever played. It started off that I was running badly, but that quickly changed to playing badly which became playing awfully until I finally quit.

One thing that I am fortunate for is that when I tilt I don't move up the limits, I withdraw my money and that's what I've done now. I just withdrew $4,700 (£3000) into my bank account so no matter how much I run I'll at least bank a really decent win for myself. That still leaves me with a little bit over $3,900 to play with which is plenty. I'm going to drop back down to $1/$2 and find the discipline that I had at the start of the week and just grind six tables of that and make $200 a day and try to rebuild the money a bit.

That's after I've had a few days break of course. I'm not going to play again before Saturday when I will allow myself to play some tournaments. I won't play cash again until Monday. I think that is an adequate break that I think will be important.

On a positive note, since I've started playing again I've withdrawn £5,000 in total. That's a good achievement considering I've only been playing online since Jul 15. I am proud of myself. Let's hope that after this break I'll return refreshed and ready to return to winning ways, and most importantly that I won't be running like a fat kid in treacle.

Poker Week: Day 7 - Untitled

This entry was supposed to be called Poker Week: Day 7 - Finished with a Pop instead of a Bang since at the time when I was planning to stop playing I was winning the modest sum of $200. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with a $200 win. If I could make a $200 every single day guaranteed, I'd take that, but compared to some of the previous wins of the week, including the $4,800 from day 6, this is definitely not the grand finale I would've liked.

However the title has been scrapped and an adequate replacement has not been thought of. Why has the title been scrapped? Well because I decided to play a marginal hand for the final PLO pot of the week. A-2-4-5 single suited, and it wasn't the Ace. I saw marginal, what I mean is trash.

There has been a preflop raise and I flat in position, the BB flats as well so when we go to the flop there is about $95 in the pot, currently I'm sitting on about $900, only $200 of which is profit. The flop comes and it's A-4-J with two clubs, I have 5-2 of clubs. So I'm sitting here with two pair, a gutshot and a five high flush draw. The BB pots it into the preflop raiser, the raiser now repots it and its round to me. This should be a simple fold, but the lure of a big win struck me.

So I didn't snap fold, instead I moved my bet slider all the way up to pot, basically committing myself, my mouse hovered over the raise button. It floated there, not moving, tables kept popping up and I just folded away, thinking should I go for it. The BB could be stealing I thought, the preflop raiser could be defending I thought. Even if they both have hands I must have outs I thought. Still, this is an easy fold.

Just at that moment my girlfriend started calling me to look at something, hold on I said, she persisted, be quiet I said, she persisted, as I turned around to tell her I need to concentrate my finger slipped. Suddenly I turned around and I had potted it, the BB had now gone over the top and the preflop raiser with him. I had to call off the rest of my chips with trash.

The BB showed the nut flush draw. Killing my outs... Marv.

The original preflop raiser should a set of Aces. Killing my outs... Marv.

My only live outs were non-club threes, the four on the turn was instant services as the set of Aces housed up and took down the lot. I was now -$730 on the day and furious. I quit every table and had a go at my girlfriend, telling her when I'm playing six tables at once with thousands in play I need to concentrate. The truth is it wasn't her fault, I should've snap folded. I played with filthy and got stung, lesson learned, I need to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Unfortunately, that's my third losing cash day in a row. Fortunately, it's only my second losing day over all and I've made excellent money this week. I'm extremely proud of what I've done.

Daily Bankroll Update: -$733.80
Bankroll Update for the Week: $9,938.81

Other Random Musings
Went back to work today and already I want to get back to sitting at home playing poker. It's difficult doing a job that you don't want to do, that you hate. I know that I won't be making $10K every week playing poker, but I'm happy making $500 a week as long as I can do it consistently. I just love the game that much, plus it's the freedom. I played on average 2.48 hours each day on my holiday, it's nothing. The rest of the time I did as I pleased. That's what I want.

I saw Angelina Jolie on Monday at the premiere of Salt in Leicester Square. I was up there at the Empire (which did not go well) and was on my way home when I decided to wait around to see her. It was worth it, she is too hot for words.

Although I would like to point out, my dream woman is Christina Hendricks.

The Mad Men star is perfection in every possible way! Stunning good looks, beautiful fiery red hair (apparently she's been dying it since she was 12 but I don't mind, I'm sure she looks great with her natural blonde) and a great rack. Yes, it matters, I'm a breast man and love my women to have a decent pair of passion pillows.

Jean Pascal caused the upset in the fight with Chad Dawson at the weekend. I'm very proud to say I called it. "Bad" Chad is a great fighter but he doesn't like to engage and he got caught out by a fighter who throws bombs and is willing to put it on the line against a better opponent. The same thing will happen to Floyd Mayweather Jr one of these days, and when it does I will be a very happy man.

Poker Week: Day 6 - Cash Loss, Tournament Win

I got greedy yesterday!

I played two tables of $5/$10 PLO and made $600 but when the games started breaking and it went down to heads-up with a weak calling station I couldn't resist staying to try and get some value out of him. I've only ever played about 5,000 hands of HU play and never this high, $2/$4 is the highest I've ever played HU, but this guy was awful.

About 100 hands later I had stacked off twice to him and ended up finishing the day with a -$394.29 loss for my second losing day in a row. I didn't feel like playing cash games anymore, so I signed up to a tournament, a $109 freezeout.

Except after the tournament started I realised it wasn't a $109 tournament it was a $109 2R1A tournament which means my $109 tournament was now going to cost me more like $409 if I wanted to stand any chance of taking it down. Ever the positive thinking poker player, despite being underrolled for a tournament of that size I decided I would give it my best shot.

Before long I found myself as a massive chip leader and breezing to the final table. Good times!

I've been in this position before though and failed to take it down, however with just 16 runners remaining when I was on a 59k stack with the average at just 33k and the closest stack at my table just 37k, I felt really confident that I could get a top three finish. I actually managed to take the whole thing down for a little bit under $5,500 and more positively my first tournament win since I started playing again on Jul 15.

Proud of my achievement I went to bed a very happy man with my account reading over $11,000 and taking my winnings for the week just a few hundred past my target of $10,000. A very productive week. I've been feeling pretty down about my MTT performances recently and feel like I've lost something. I was never massively successful, but I had a good aggressive style that would allow me to get chipped up. Recently I've felt I'd tightened up too much, I tried to play more freely yesterday and trust my instincts, it paid off.

Here are a few hands that I thought I played well and used the dynamics of the table well.

Hand #1 - Five High Bluff
PokerStars Game #48260798034: Tournament #326010761, $100+$9 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXI (1000/2000) - 2010/08/17 2:45:08 WET [2010/08/16 21:45:08 ET]
Table '326010761 7' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: white-bar (137781 in chips)
Seat 3: jvbizz (65846 in chips)
Seat 5: potamophob1a (101530 in chips)
Seat 6: Tajh PRO 07 (62131 in chips)
Seat 7: ImDaNuts (130212 in chips)
white-bar: posts the ante 250
jvbizz: posts the ante 250
potamophob1a: posts the ante 250
Tajh PRO 07: posts the ante 250
ImDaNuts: posts the ante 250
white-bar: posts small blind 1000
jvbizz: posts big blind 2000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to potamophob1a [4s 5s]
potamophob1a: raises 2223 to 4223
Tajh PRO 07: folds
ImDaNuts: folds
white-bar: calls 3223
jvbizz: folds
*** FLOP *** [Kh 8h 6d]
white-bar: checks
potamophob1a: checks
*** TURN *** [Kh 8h 6d] [Tc]
white-bar: bets 4000
potamophob1a: raises 5952 to 9952
white-bar: calls 5952
*** RIVER *** [Kh 8h 6d Tc] [8d]
white-bar: checks
potamophob1a: bets 17555
white-bar: folds
Uncalled bet (17555) returned to potamophob1a
potamophob1a collected 31600 from pot
potamophob1a: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 31600 | Rake 0
Board [Kh 8h 6d Tc 8d]
Seat 1: white-bar (small blind) folded on the River
Seat 3: jvbizz (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: potamophob1a collected (31600)
Seat 6: Tajh PRO 07 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: ImDaNuts (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)


Hand #2 - Not Backing Down to Three-Bets
PokerStars Game #48260902859: Tournament #326010761, $100+$9 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXI (1000/2000) - 2010/08/17 2:48:15 WET [2010/08/16 21:48:15 ET]
Table '326010761 7' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: white-bar (122856 in chips)
Seat 3: jvbizz (70766 in chips)
Seat 5: potamophob1a (115205 in chips)
Seat 6: Tajh PRO 07 (74331 in chips)
Seat 7: ImDaNuts (114342 in chips)
white-bar: posts the ante 250
jvbizz: posts the ante 250
potamophob1a: posts the ante 250
Tajh PRO 07: posts the ante 250
ImDaNuts: posts the ante 250
Tajh PRO 07: posts small blind 1000
ImDaNuts: posts big blind 2000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to potamophob1a [Th Qs]
white-bar: folds
jvbizz: folds
potamophob1a: raises 2333 to 4333
Tajh PRO 07: calls 3333
ImDaNuts: raises 7667 to 12000
potamophob1a: raises 17455 to 29455
Tajh PRO 07: folds
ImDaNuts: folds
Uncalled bet (17455) returned to potamophob1a
potamophob1a collected 29583 from pot
potamophob1a: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 29583 | Rake 0
Seat 1: white-bar folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: jvbizz folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: potamophob1a (button) collected (29583)
Seat 6: Tajh PRO 07 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: ImDaNuts (big blind) folded before Flop

Both of those hands are from the final table, the reason I picked them is I felt I used the table dynamics well and made good use of my chips. Both hands are weak, QT off-sweet is trash to a call and three-bet and five-high, well, it's five-high. But I put pressure on smaller stacks and made them pay for putting chips into the pot out of position and without hands. That's certainly important for being successful and tournaments.

Hopefully this new mix of my current tight play and my previous hyper-aggressive play will start to see a few more returns. I now have a new goal, at least for the next week. I'm going to try and take down two more tournaments in the next week on Full Tilt and PartyPoker so that I can achieve a Triple Crown. There's no reward, it's more for the props to be honest, just to say I'm a PocketFives.com Triple Crown winner.

That would make me feel good.

Daily Bankroll Update: $4,779.16
Bankroll Update for the Week: $10,672.61

Poker Week: Day 5 - Took a Shot, Killed the Streak....

I did something a tad reckless yesterday, I took a shot at $25/$50 PLO on Full Tilt. I had $2,800 in my Full Tilt account which I had spun up earlier in the week from $100 and I decided I would take a shot at a limit that I am no where near bankrolled for. The reason why I took this shot was for several reasons, firstly there were three players that I had notes on and considered to be weak players. Three players in a 6-max game is a hell of a lot, in my opinion. Secondly, my main bankroll is on PokerStars, this money on Full Tilt is really there for extra in case I decide to play on there. Finally, a good win at that limit could be several weeks worth at the limits I currently play at.

Unfortunately the gamble didn't pay off this time. I sat at a Shallow table with $2,000 and ended up getting it in with two pair and an up-and-down firing all three streets out of position, only for my opponent (one of the tagged weak players) to call me down with second pair and a nine high flush draw, the flush draw got there on the river when I only had $650 left with over $3,000 in the middle. It was either check-fold, check-call or bet and pray, I elected to bet and pray, he called me with his nine high flush and it was good.

I popped on the final $800 and played it super tight, I managed to get it up to about $1,400 before getting it in with double suited Kings against single suited Aces. Then Aces held, fairly standard.

So that was my attempt at $25/$50, it didn't go well and I ended up losing $2,800. However, my pride wouldn't leave it there and I got on PokerStars and grinded the PLO tables until I finally banked a $65 profit for the day to keep my streak alive of winning every day of my holiday. Pleased with myself for breaking even, I stopped playing, watched some TV. I got out WWE SummerSlam on PPV and started watching it, but then I got the itch.

I couldn't resist trying to turn the break even $65 into a few hundred profit so I can say I've won every day and won a decent amount. I think it was the pride, I ended up losing $800. I stopped there realising that I was too tired to play and was stupid for getting back on there in the first place.

I'm not upset about losing the $2.8K on the shot, I'm more annoyed that its ruined my $1,000 per day minimum streak that I've had since I've been off, but losing is inevitable and I can win back the rest and then some.

With the tournaments I had planned, I played the Sunday Warm-up and Event #34 (NLHE 6-Max KO) on Full Tilt, and ran like shit in both of them. I ran so bad I decided not to play the Millions or the FTOPS Main Event, I'm not really bankrolled to play them and NLHE MTTs isn't my strongest form of poker. The main reason to play the tournaments is the six figure scores for the win, but realistically it's unlikely to be me winning so why waste the money.

I think I'm not going to worry about MTTs for awhile, I should be happy to have found a form of poker that I am very profitable at. I love playing PLO cash games and that's where I should stay, I can make good money there.

I was reading some old blog posts by Ben "Milky Bar Kid" Grundy and he sets himself yearly goals. I think I'm going to set myself some monthly goals, I had a think about it last night while I was in bed and I came up with the following goals:

1. Win at least $10,000 by Aug 31
2. Have a $1,000 stop loss that I should never break
3. Win at least $2,000 at $1/$2 PLO (I'm about break-even at this limit currently)
4. Play at least 10,000 hands at all limits

Those are the four goals I've decided to set myself for the rest of this month. Currently, I have around $7,700 profit for August so point one should be achievable. Point two is more about discipline and to make sure I don't take huge hits to my bankroll, I rarely break this rule as it is, but I want to make it formal. Point three is the big one for me, currently over 4.5K hands I have only $170 profit, this is simply not enough. I can't figure out whether its bad play or running bad, but I need to win here so that's going to be a big one for me. $2,000 may be a bit unachieveable by Aug 31st, but what's the point in making these things easy?!

Daily Bankroll Update: -$803.30
Bankroll Update for the Week: $5,893.45

Poker Week: Day 4 - Steady As She Goes...

"Find yourself a girl and settle down. Live a simple life in a quiet town. Steady as she goes, steady as she goes." - Steady As She Goes by The Raconteurs



That has been the theme tune for the week so far, I've not been trying to do anything exceptional, just win consistently and it's been paying off so far. Everyday I've won at least $1,000 on the PLO cash games. Yesterday I didn't play as much cash but managed to maintain that form, while I put the hours in playing six MTTs.

The MTTs did not go too well but again the steady as she goes motto seemed to be the focus as I tried not to make any flamboyant moves and just kept things going slow and steady, trying to accumulate chips slowly without getting into any marginal spots. Unfortunately, of the six tournaments I played I only cashed in one, but that's tournament poker.

One I busted early getting AA vs KK all-in preflop only for my opponent to spike a King. Marv. Next up was a straight flush draw with two overs vs TPTK, I missed my outs. I can't remember the other early exit and can't be bothered to go through PT3 to find it. The other tournaments were tales of getting short stacked, card dead and no spots to shove.

The final one that I managed to cash in I lost a big pot when I was fairly chipped up, the hand played out like this. There was a 3X raise UTG (second hand in a row he had raised), UTG+1 shoved (second hand in a row he had shoved over the top of UTG raiser and fourth time in the last orbit). Folded to me in the SB and I have pocket sevens. Now by my reckoning UTG+1 is shoving very light, and UTG who is the big stack at the table is raising frequently and often.

What I didn't want to happen is to smooth the UTG+1 shove only to have UTG move in over the top and I'd have to fold or make a crying call (can't remember the stack sizes, but it's going to be one of the two options) so I decided to shove over the top to isolate UTG+1.

This time he had AQ and an Ace and a Queen on the flop pretty much sealed it for me. That left me with about 15BB and ended up getting it in with KQ vs AJ in a standard button raise, with me reshoving in the BB and getting snapped off. Nothing spectacular happened and I cashed for about $140 which is rubbish considering it was a $250 outlay in total for all the tournaments, but as I said, that's tournament poker. It further underlined to me that PLO cash games is by far my best form of poker.

I'll be taking a step away from the PLO cash games again tonight when I plan on playing the four major Sunday tournaments: PokerStars Sunday Warm-up and Sunday Millions as well as the Full Tilt $750,000 Guaranteed and the FTOPS Main Event. It's over $1,300 worth of tournament entries, but with $6,000,000 in prizes up for grabs I'm hoping to get my piece of it.

Let's hope the steady as she goes motto finally gets me that overdue tournament win tonight.

Daily Bankroll Update: $1,116.30
Bankroll Update for the Week: $6,697.25

Poker Week: Day 3 - Living The Dream...

Day three of my poker week and things keep getting better and better. Yesterday I was intending to focus on MTTs but a friend called saying he was ditching work and was on his way round to play Pro Evo, so I ended up doing what I do best, playing PLO cash games.

The FTOPS are coming to a conclusion this week with the Main Event on Sunday, at $600+$40 No Limit Hold'em event with a $3,000,000 guarantee and I knew I wanted to play it. However, it's well outside of my bankroll so I made a deal with myself. If I could spin up the final $100 I had left in my Full Tilt account then I would play it.

So according to PokerTracker 3 after 1.23 hours of play I managed to turn my $100 into $2,658.37. Nice! Plus a few hundred that I won on PokerStars that day meant that yesterday I made over $2,800 in profit and bought myself one hell of a Sunday.

My plans are to play the Sunday Warm-up, the Sunday Millions, the Full Tilt $750K GTD and the FTOPS ME which is about $1,300 worth of tournament entries but over $6,000,000 prizepool up for grabs, then a good performance in just one of these tournaments could fast track my plans big time. I'm really looking forward to it, lets home the tournaments don't go like the last two times I've played the Warm-up since my $975 cash.

Both of them I busted within the first two hours of play!

The best thing about what's been going on is just how happy I am. I know this can't last forever, and there will be down days when I lose significant amounts of money. However right now I'm living the dream! I woke up at 11am instead of 6.30am, I had a shower, watched a movie on Sky Premiere, had some breakfast. Then after that at 1pm I went online, I played for about 1 hour and 15 minutes on PLO cash games and made $2,500 as well as a $10 tournament which I busted in 97th for just $21.68. I played in total for about four hours, then my friend come round and I played computer games with him before heading out.

That's the life! Easy, relaxed, stress-free, good money and working as and when I please. This week has made me realise one thing, I can not wait until I do this for a living. My aim is to get the bankroll to multitable at $5/$10, once I can do that I could potentially be making in the region of $300,000 a year which is fairly achieveable if I put the hours in and doing something that I really love.

That's the dream and soon I'll be living it.

Daily Bankroll Update: $2,847.85
Bankroll Update for the Week: $5,580.95

Poker Week: Day 2 - Oh My, The Swings...

Oh. My. Gawd. Yesterday was a day of swings, first I was down $370 (bad start) so I took a break for a few hours, then I managed to win $500, before going $800 into the red. I took another break, I then sat at $5/$10 because I saw a few weak players I had notes on, I lost another $500, I reloaded, lost $350 of that so I was down to just $150 and I had lost a total of $1,550. I managed to get a triple up getting my short stack in three-way with 7c-6d-5c-4d and flopping the nut full house.

Soon I had grinded my stack up to $1,700 when I get it all in preflop with AAT9 double suited against another big stack at the table. There was $3,500 in the middle and my opponent showed AA72 rainbow, I made my flush and shipped a huge pot. After that I played a few more rounds, lost around $200 back before leaving. That takes my current online bankroll up to $5,000 now and gave me $1,665.25 profit for the day.

One disappoint side is that I can't get into the MTTs. I really want to improve this aspect of my game, but I find it kind of boring. The appealing thing is the big scores, if I get good, then regularly taking down a four-figure score would be nice and the odd five-figure mixed in there makes MTTs very appealing. But it's a high variance form of poker and I don't put in the kind of volume needed to get the results.

I should remedy this.

Another thing that I really, really bugging me is that currently over 3,113 hands at $1/$2 PLO I have made a $182.20 loss. I know it's not a great deal of money, and I've checked the hand histories, and it looks to me like I'm not running too well. But there must be something I need to improve. It bugs me that at my main level of play, I'm currently a more or less break-even/small losing player. I know the sample isn't huge, but I've only been playing online again for a short period of time.

I'm going to address the problem by tightening my preflop starting requirements so I stop getting into such marginal situations while I'm multitabling. And while I'm at it, that's a really important point, my most profitable limits are $5/$10 and $3/$6. I don't multitable at these limits, I play one table and focus on it. At $1/$2 I play up to six tables, I think that I'm obviously not that great at multitabling yet and that's something else I need to work on, eventually I want to get the bankroll to multitable $5/$10 and higher. If I want to get there then I need to get the hang of playing six tables at the lower limits.


Daily Bankroll Update: $1,665.25
Bankroll Update for the Week: $2,757.85

Poker Week: Day 1 - A Good Start...

Yesterday was day one of my seven days of poker before I have to get back to ordinary working life and things are going well. I won $1,091.60 in PLO cash games for the day, plus $102.58 from the $10 rebuy I entered. However, that doesn't quite balance out the losses from the previous day where I dropped $1,100 in cash games plus my $216 tournament entry for the HA FTOPS event. Still, I've got plenty of time to do well.

One really strange hand happened in the evening when I played the $30 1R1A on PokerStars.

PokerStars Game #48027043764: Tournament #325010723, $30+$3 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level III (20/40) - 2010/08/11 23:02:43 WET [2010/08/11 18:02:43 ET]
Table '325010723 11' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: player9ball (3065 in chips)
Seat 2: vadka (7500 in chips)
Seat 3: potamophob1a (4960 in chips)
Seat 4: The Ravioli (10070 in chips)
Seat 5: Blackbeaty (5000 in chips)
Seat 6: Maen Lein (2895 in chips)
Seat 7: Papo1020 (2500 in chips)
Seat 8: reelhugefish (8180 in chips)
Seat 9: BjörnD (1695 in chips)
Blackbeaty: posts small blind 20
Maen Lein: posts big blind 40
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to potamophob1a [8c 7s]
Papo1020: calls 40
reelhugefish: folds
BjörnD: folds
player9ball: folds
vadka: folds
potamophob1a: raises 80 to 120
The Ravioli: folds
Blackbeaty: folds
Maen Lein: folds
Papo1020: calls 80
*** FLOP *** [5h Kh Qs]
Papo1020: bets 40
potamophob1a: raises 240 to 280
Papo1020: calls 240
*** TURN *** [5h Kh Qs] [Ah]
Papo1020: bets 40
potamophob1a: raises 440 to 480
Papo1020: calls 440
*** RIVER *** [5h Kh Qs Ah] [Jc]
Papo1020: checks
potamophob1a: bets 1680
Papo1020: calls 1620 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (60) returned to potamophob1a
*** SHOW DOWN ***
potamophob1a: shows [8c 7s] (high card Ace)
Papo1020: shows [6s 6h] (a pair of Sixes)
Papo1020 collected 5060 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 5060 | Rake 0
Board [5h Kh Qs Ah Jc]
Seat 1: player9ball folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: vadka folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: potamophob1a showed [8c 7s] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 4: The Ravioli (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Blackbeaty (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: Maen Lein (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: Papo1020 showed [6s 6h] and won (5060) with a pair of Sixes
Seat 8: reelhugefish folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: BjörnD folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Even the most incompetent of players must know they are beat there! I can only assume the guy was drunk. Because that is an insane soul read call, my hand is like the only thing he's beating since most smaller pairs will start checking to get to showdown with some showdown value. Any higher pairs are obviously winning, it's only hands like mine that will bluff at it.

I'm sure the guy is a huge losing player, but the hand just made me laugh to be honest.

I've made a few rules for myself with the poker over the next week. The most important one is that I won't wake up and start playing immediately, that's way too degenerate so I'm going to shower, eat, watch some TV, etc before I start playing. Just to make sure I'm fully awake and fully focused.

Anyway, I'm about to start playing again now so look out for another updating tomorrow morning! I'm going to try and concentrate on MTTs today so we'll see how that goes, I'm not a great MTT player as my main focus is PLO cash games. But I'm desperate to improve so I'm going to try and put in some volume over the next week or so.

Daily Bankroll Update: $1,091.60
Bankroll Update for the Week: $1,091.60

Holiday From Work...

I've taken five days out of work, three this week and two next week, to dedicate my time to playing poker for the next seven days. So over the next seven days I will be putting up a blog entry each day as a diary for my progress. I will try and post each evening or first thing the following morning so keep an eye out.

Walking Kittens...

Look at these bad boys go, or at least look at this still image and create a mental picture of them going. They're now three weeks old and have started walking. It's great.

Ups and Downs...

Since I withdrew my $3,000 and spunked the rest on a it of a downswing I had about a week break from playing online, then on Tuesday last week I had a little flutter. I stuck $100 and lost it running an Ace high flush into a straight flush. Reloaded for another $100 and got it in with the nut straight against a flush draw which got there. FML. $100 more! This time it was a cold deck as I had the shit side of a set over set. $100 more goes on!

I grind and grind, get a few spots and my hands finally hold up and I'm sitting on $900. Now on Sunday I have over $3,000 in my account again and things are looking good. I'm playing well (I think) and my big hands seem to be holding well. I've found a site that I like where I feel the standard is poor (PokerStars). I'm playing anywhere between $1/$2 and $5/$10 always sitting on the 20BB - 50BB tables if I can since I'm not massively rolled yet and these tables are less aggressive and therefore less swingy. Plus a lot of people don't understand how to play short-stacked PLO.

Last night, I played in the FTOPS Event #8 $500 + $35 PLO 6-Max $350,000 Guaranteed. I wasn't involved too much in the early stages, getting my stack up to 6,500 at one point (starting from 6,000) but it slowly wore down to 5,800 or so when this spot happened on just the third level in.

Full Tilt Poker Game #22904763562: FTOPS Event #8 (167284224), Table 3 - 30/60 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 14:38:03 ET - 2010/08/07
Seat 1: 0vash0rk (6,070)
Seat 2: Hippicrit (9,150)
Seat 3: Dave Colclough (5,130)
Seat 4: potamophob1a (5,860)
Seat 5: CellarEndorphin (10,398)
Seat 6: ronnyr37617 (2,100)
CellarEndorphin posts the small blind of 30
ronnyr37617 posts the big blind of 60
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to potamophob1a [Kh 9h 7d Kd]
0vash0rk raises to 210
Hippicrit folds
Dave Colclough folds
potamophob1a raises to 720
CellarEndorphin folds
ronnyr37617 folds
0vash0rk calls 510
*** FLOP *** [Ks 7c 2c]
0vash0rk checks
potamophob1a has 15 seconds left to act
potamophob1a bets 1,160
0vash0rk raises to 5,010
potamophob1a raises to 5,140, and is all in
0vash0rk calls 130
0vash0rk shows [As Ts Ac 4s]
potamophob1a shows [Kh 9h 7d Kd]
*** TURN *** [Ks 7c 2c] [6h]
*** RIVER *** [Ks 7c 2c 6h] [Ad]
0vash0rk shows three of a kind, Aces
potamophob1a shows three of a kind, Kings
0vash0rk wins the pot (11,810) with three of a kind, Aces
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 11,810 | Rake 0
Board: [Ks 7c 2c 6h Ad]
Seat 1: 0vash0rk showed [As Ts Ac 4s] and won (11,810) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 2: Hippicrit didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: Dave Colclough didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: potamophob1a (button) showed [Kh 9h 7d Kd] and lost with three of a kind, Kings
Seat 5: CellarEndorphin (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: ronnyr37617 (big blind) folded before the flop

Needless to say, I went on super monkey tilt. I got my money in as an 84.39% favourite in a tournament with a life changing first prize ($80,000) and couldn't hold as my opponent spiked an Ace. I was livid. I tried to stop playing but then my girlfriend had to go out and I was left alone and ended up going back online, I knew I was tilting so I was careful. Instead of playing cash, I registered for a few lower staked NLHE tournaments on PokerStars, the buy-ins totalled around $60.

I played these super aggressively, like a massive maniac, got up to the chip lead in two of them and started to detilt thinking I might actually go all the way here. I was wrong. Out of one with QQ vs AT, spikes two Aces. Out of the other one with AK vs AQ, binks the Q on the river. FML. I sat down at a $2/$4 PLO table and when I got my QQxx in on a Q-8-3 rainbow board against 88xx I thought things were changing.

The backdoor straight my opponent made changed my opinion on that.

So I lost around $800 in tournament buy-ins and cash games yesterday and did not feel happy. I chilled with my girlfriend and ate my way through a load of junk food to make myself feel better. I'm like a 16 year old girl getting over a break-up, but I gotta say the pizza, Pringles and Ben & Jerry's did the trick. I went to bed thinking about the tournament and thinking about what could have been.

I woke up this morning and had a cheeky thirty minute session. I'm (kinda) pleased to say my run bad only lasted for the biggest tournament I've played in as this morning in my short session I won over $1,200 playing four tables of $2/$4 PLO. My hands just held up and in one pot I got super lucky when I three-bet in position with double suited Kings and got called in two spots. On a raggedy 7-3-2 rainbow flop a short stack shoved in, I shoved over the top with a larger stack still behind hoping to fold him out and get it heads-up. He called me and had some filth in his hand which had connected (T-3-7-K, wtf?!).

A backdoor flush was good enough for me to take down the $700 pot. SHIP SHIP SHIP!

Other Random Musings
Our baby kittens have grown loads since my last photos, they're now walking and climbing. You sit down with them on your lap and within minutes they'll be climbing all over your head. It's great to see them growing like this.

I keep missing WWE Raw on a Thursday night and it's really bugging me. Smackdown really isn't anywhere near as good, the storylines are just not as well written. At the moment the NEXUS vs WWE/Cena storyline is really good, and I love seeing a Brit representing in WWE. Wade Barratt has the makings of a real superstar in the wrestling industry.

Watched the Alexander-Kotelnik fight this morning and gotta say I had it a lot closer than the judges did at ringside. I scored the fight 115-113 to Alexander but a few of the rounds were so close. Considering everyone was calling him the next big thing I'm not impressed. However, one dodgy performance isn't enough to discount him, not after the Witter and Urango fight. But he's got a lot of work to do, he isn't anywhere near ready for Timothy Bradley or Amir Khan, the two best 140lbs fighters in the world.

I need a two bedroom place, if the poker keeps going well then I'll be getting one in October when our contract here is up. I won't be paying for it with poker money, it'll be paid for by work money, but the poker money will go towards other living expenses (food, bills, etc). The first step towards playing for a living.

I really need to start watching some PokerXFactor videos and improve my MTT game.

Finally, crazy, insanely, mad props to Sam "The Squid" Grafton. An old poker buddy who is one of the most talented players I've ever had the fortune to meet, I always knew he'd make the big time when he used to consistently catch me bluffing in the £1/£1 NLHE cash game and make the most insane calls. The guy has an incredible ability to read the game and has been making a living crushing online MTTs since December, however he is slowly making his way to the big time with a few decent results at live tournaments.

Then on Wednesday he really made a massive score when he finished third in FTOPS Event #1 and took home $81,000. The sick thing was that he had both of two players left heads-up all-in preflop for their tournament lives with just two outs to hit holding overpairs and both of them binked. He should've had the whooping six-figure $164,000 first prize.

Without doubt he'll get there sooner rather than later and I would advise all of you to watch out for him on the tournament scene in the future. I expect him to do really well at WSOP next year and I wouldn't be surprised if we see him final tabling at WSOPE event in September.

Sam Grafton, you are different gravy, sir.