Tricky Times...

Poker wise not a great deal has happened for me since I've been back at The International I've been going down there fairly regularly. I haven't tracked all of my sessions, I think I missed the first three or four, but I've tracked my last six cash sessions down there and I've won in all of them and made over £2,300 profit so far. From that money, I used some of it to buy myself this nice Samsung N220 netbook.

Nice.

Perfect for carrying around with me whenever I wanna play PLO on the go.

Live tournaments have not gone as well, since I played the PLO Double Chance during the GSOP I haven't had a single cash, in fact I've busted early every single time.

Yesterday for example, I make a semi-bluff with a gutshot and a flush draw on the turn, and some fella with deuces wants to shove over my 2,800 bet for just 3,100 more. He has ZERO fold equity against me, the move made no sense, even my overs were live. I'm a 60-40 underdog, but getting the right price to call and the play was a good one, deuces should always be folding on a board that contained a flush draw, straight draw and four overcards including an Ace. Obviously, it bricks on the turn.

I could reel off examples where I believe I've played the hand well enough but my opponent has made a mistake which cost me but there is no point dwelling on it. I think I will take a break from live tournaments at the club and just concentrate on cash games, I seem more profitable.

In other news, I'm having a real tough time with my girlfriend. We've decided we need to take some time apart, in actual fact, it was more she decided, I just vocalised it because it looked like she couldn't. Basically for a few months now neither of us have been that happy with the way things are, a couple of weeks ago I told her that I was unhappy and thought we needed to both make an effort to change. We both agreed we would.

Then a couple of days ago we talk again. I've tried, or at least I think I've tried, but she says she doesn't know if she wants to try (or something along those lines). I was pretty destroyed by that. I wasn't happy, and I've had my doubts, but I really wanted to make it work, but she seems to be having more doubts than I am. Anyway, the point is it resulted in us deciding to take a break from one another so I'm crashing round a mates house for now.

The problem is, I didn't want a break, I only said it because that's what it felt like she wants. To me a break is just a break up being postponed a bit, dragging things on, and I don't want to break up with her. I want to try and make it work, its been six and a half years and I love her so much. We'll see how things go but hopefully they will work out. It's a real make or break time because our contract is up on a flat in about one months time so we need to know what we want by then.

My mate is due to move out of his place soon as well, so I think we may look for somewhere together, the problem is I still need to pay for one more months rent at my flat, if I then get another one, that is a month of double rent plus I'll need deposit money, and I just dunno if I can afford that. My mate was due to move out tomorrow, but we're discussing staying here for another month and then seeing if we can find a place together. That seems like a good solution.

I may even mention to my girlfriend the idea of us living in a houseshare with other people or living separately for awhile. I don't know if she will go for that idea though. I don't know if I want it. I miss her. I miss my pets. I miss having my own place. One thing I don't miss though is living out in the styx of Leytonstone, I hope things do work out between us, and if they do, moving back more centrally is definitely going to be important to me.

Back to Square One

A lot has happened in the week or two since I last blogged. I used my bankroll to repay money I owed to various debt companies and people. I contacted Barry Martin from The International to regain my membership there and rekindle a lot of old friendships.

The worst thing is giving up my bankroll, while it was good to repay debts I now have just £2,000 to continue playing poker with, that means I'm going to either have to bink a tournament or start playing a lot lower. Grinding low stakes is difficult, ideally I wanna play a tournament a bink or go on one huge spin-up. The latter is definitely possible with a bit of luck, I'd just like to get a decent bankroll for $1/$2 then try to get 100,000 hands at that limit to be sure I can beat it comfortably.

Yesterday I had a good chat with a few old poker buddies about all things from spin-ups to bankroll management, bad beats to funny TV poker hands. It was really good to be at the poker club and just chill and chat, not to play, just sit down and chat to people. So much has changed at the club, a lot of players have improved a great deal and I've gotten worse because of the lengthy break.

I've got to put in a lot of work to try and improve. I should find an area of poker to focus on but the truth is I want to play both PLO cash games and NLHE tournaments. They both appeal to me a great deal, and I don't know if I'm willing to sacrafice one of them to focus solely on the other one. I need to make my mind up soon though.

Now on to my return to The International... Boy it's good to be back!

So nice to catch-up with people, I played my first tournament, the £200 PLO Double Chance, I reached the final table as chip leader with 135K with around 500K chips in play. I so desperately wanted to win it after 18 months out, it would've been nice to take it down straight away. With nine on the final table but only seven places pay, I took this as an opportunity to start applying pressure to the shorter stacks around me, it started well when UTG+1 raised the pot, I repotted with a double suited J-T-9-8 and the raiser called me with single suited Aces, the 5-2-2 flop was a dream for him, but the 8 on the turn and the 8 on the river was the dream for me.

I tried to keep the pressure up until people started talking about a deal, we decided to take money off the top three places to give 8th place their money back. Generally I don't like doing bubble deals, but I was too tired to protest. But here was the problem, once the bubble has burst I should've slowed down, I didn't. I was still raising marginal hands but when I got three-bet I called with position and a deep stack. I'd hit but I wouldn't hit solid then I'd have to call the shove getting priced in and failing to win the hand. Within 20 mins I went from chip leader to busto and finishing up in 8th place cashing just £220 instead of the £3000 that was available for first place.

I was disappointed in myself and thought I should've done much better. I think there are a few reasons why I performed so poorly. Firstly I was immensely tired, after working back to back 14 hour shifts at DoubleTake this week, by midnight I was exhausted. It was 3.30am by the time we reached the final table and I could barely stay awake. Furthermore, I wanted it too badly, I started forcing the action and that was a mistake.

All in all I think I played well, I got lucky in a few spots but doesn't everyone need to do so to win a tournament? I'm happy with my performance except on the final table.

I also had Luc (Cause I like you, CILY) on my table. CILY hates me, I'm not sure why, but he hates me. The following day after the tournament he gave me a scathing review about my performance and about me as a person. I dunno what this guys problem is, but he is a classless cunt, and I gotta say, if we met on the streets one day he may find himself waking up in hospital the following morning.

I was supposed to be going to the funeral of Charlie Haddon today. Sadly I got locked in my own flat! Basically my girlfriend and I lock up the door to our flat at nights because we're worried that we've had people in our flat in the past. When one of us leaves before the other one wakes up, we also lock the door while they're asleep. That's all fine, the problem is, I can't find my keys anywhere, I think may have left them at work.

I feel terrible, but these things happen, at least I've finally had time to update my blog!