Confessions of a Potamophobic Gambler

New Year, New Challenges...

2011-01-21T16:59:00.004Z

Now the new year is upon us I am setting myself some new challenges. I've had a really difficult few months since my break-up but now I'm going to try and have a fresh start. I've just got back from three weeks in Thailand (I had an absolutely incredible time), I'm currently looking for a new job and taking a small break from poker. Once I find a new job, I'll start back with the poker.

In terms of the beautiful game this year, I'm just looking to grind online. I'm going to try and cut out my visits to The International because I find myself getting too degen when I visit there frequently. I'm going to go back to what I do best, playing online PLO cash games.

I'm going to start small, really small, $500 bankroll and grind $0.05/$0.10 and $0.10/$0.25 PLO. It will be difficult to do, but I want to challenge myself. I want to grow and do this properly. This will help me get back in to the swing of things, once I get the bankroll I plan to move to HU PLO and concentrate predominately on that. Heads-up PLO is a really challenging game, but I believe that if I put in the effort I can beat it consistently.

I recently joined the Eat My Stack forum after a recommendation from my good friend, Sang. Sang (Likey) regularly contributes to EMS and speaks of it highly. I've tried twoplustwo before and it just wasn't for me, there are too many pricks on that forum and it seems really cliquey. I read and sometimes post on PocketFives, but that is mainly NL MTTers, EMS seems to have a nice balance of players in varying stacks. Hopefully the site will help me with my discipline. The PLO section is a bit light on posts, but once I get playing again I'm sure I'll help increase the traffic there.

But before any of that my main agenda is to get a new job, find a new place to live (easier said than done with Marley) and then start playing poker again. Hopefully I can get back to where I was a few months ago when I had a significant bankroll and could play the mid-stakes games.

Other Random Musings
I spent insane amounts in Thailand, that's why I now need to look for a job and can't concentrate on poker as I planned to. It's a real shame that I didn't get a chance to live the dream, but I wouldn't change my experiences in Thailand for anything.

Job hunting is such a bore. Fortunately I have an extensive DVD collection to keep me going.

A few big fights coming up in the boxing world, we've got Bradley-Alexander this month and Donaire-Montiel next month. I'm going for the Bradley in the first fight, but choosing the underdog in Montiel for the second fight. Donaire has been described as an uber-talent by most boxing writers, but there is just something about Montiel's quiet confidence. Plus every fighter they have in common Montiel has beaten far more efficiently! Both fights should be exciting.

It's Been Awhile...

2010-11-20T11:09:00.000Z

It's been awhile since I've written a blog entry but I'm going to get back on it. Over the last month and a half things have been really up and down for me, and unfortunately mostly down. Working somewhere that I hated really started to get to me, added to the fact that I was still having problems at home with my girlfriend all resulted in me entering a bit of a destructive cycle. I started gambling more, roulette, blackjack and just playing poker recklessly. I done a lot of money.

All of that came to a head a few days ago when my girlfriend and I broke up. So now I'm single, I miss my girlfriend desperately but I think its for the best. We've got a lot of things to sort out, most importantly the pets. At the moment Marley is with me and the kittens with Kat, I'm crashing as my parents for a little while.

As for work, I've handed in my notice. I hate it there and the only thing holding me back from quitting a long time ago was Kat. I felt so underappreciated and over worked there and I didn't enjoy it. I was watching Sean Locke on Soccer AM this morning and he was talking about how when he thought Ray Wilkins got fired from Chelsea because he never looked like he cared or looked busy. I can relate to that, I think my bosses think I don't do anything even when I am insanely busy because I don't moan, I just get on with my work. I get accused of being too laid back. It's been a nightmare, but I've quit now.

I'll be working until the end of the year, leaving cheap at my folks for a bit then from January I will be concentrating on poker. As I said, I've done a lot of money gambling but poker is still what I love and what I want to do and I will regain the discipline from earlier in the year. I'll be focusing primarily on my £1/£1 cash game (that will be my bread and butter) and online PLO cash games (that will eventually be my main income). I know I can win at $1/$2 up to $5/$10 so those are the limits I aim to get to again. To begin with I will start at $0.25/$0.50 (maybe lower) and I will start putting the time in and the hands in. I want to complete at least 50,000 hands at any limit before I move up. Just so I have a nice sized sample.

So that's a brief overview of what has happened to me over the last few weeks. It hasn't been great, in fact it's been one of the hardest times of my life. But now I need to look ahead and figure out how I'm going to make changes, I'm young and single with no real commitments so now is the time to take the plunge into the world of professional poker. I know it'll be hard to begin with, and I know I can't afford to let my discipline slip, but I know I can do it.

As for work, I haven't arranged a finish date yet, but I've essentially told my bosses I want my final two months pay (Nov and Dec) in full. Whether they let me finish early in Dec is up to them, hopefully they say here is the whole of Decembers pay, you can finish work at the end of November. That would be ideal so I can just get on with things.

My living situation is the most awkward now, I don't want to live with my parents. They want me to pay £50 a week house keeping, but if I'm doing that I might as well pay £70-80 and live elsewhere. I'm going to talk to my friend Ste about maybe sharing a room, he's looking for a new place and he wants to save money. This could be a good solution, if we share a room, get a couple of single beds in there then I've got someone to help keep me on the straight and narrow with poker, we will both be paying half rent and most importantly I can keep my dog (which I can't keep at my parents). I hope Ste goes for the idea.

Once I start playing poker more, if I'm successful which I am certain I will be, I can keep on the cheap with Ste for a little while. I'll be out at nights and sleeping in days a lot so we won't be getting in each others way. But after a few months I'll be able to get my own place. Perhaps I'll be a baller like Sam Grafton and start renting right in the heart of London, what a G. I'd love to move back to Camden, my mate Joe (from Ou Est Le Swimming Pool) used to live in a lovely one bedroom flat with his girlfriend just next to Koko. It was over two floors and decent size fo £250 a month. Fairly expensive but I think after a few months of playing I should be able to afford it.

That'd be ideal. But finally, I'm going to be following my dream.

EPT London £1,000 + £100 PLO Tournament...

2010-10-04T12:53:00.002+01:00

Below is the tournament report I posted up on the Gutshot forum to all of my backers after I played the £1,000 + £100 PLO event at EPT London. As a quick summary, the standard was surprisingly bad and if it wasn't for being utterly card dead and on a table where making moves was virtually impossible I could have had a real shot at shipping the title and the £19,000 that came with it, unfortunately this time it wasn't to be. Anyway, here's the report, enjoy!

£1,000 + £100 PLO Freezeout: Post Tournament Report

The Build-up...

So here is the requested Cliff style report on the tournament. I woke up nice and early at 8am and set straight out to The Vic to buy in to the event, this was the largest buy-in I've played before and I was eager to get registered and prepare myself for the day. The rest of my Saturday went as normal, I taught the private karate lesson I do every week, I watched some football, I shit, shower and shave. Beautiful.

I arrive at the Hilton Metropole at 6:15pm ready for the 7pm start. I thought I might feel about overwhelmed when I arrived but I didn't at all. Scanning the room for familiar faces (specifically Gabriel) I saw Marcel playing the £1,500 NLHE, Lisa Edwards from the club and a few other friendly faces. I decided not to approach them as I wanted to leave them to it.

At first I was a bit uneasy, not because I was worried about the tournament, but just because I felt a bit at a loss! There were about six tournaments going scattered all over the room with no signs indicating what table was what or where my event would be. I decided to just hang tight and wait for the inevitable annoucement that my event was about to begin and take it from there.

Cliff arrived at about 6:35 and I had a chat to him while he tucked in to a tasty looking salmon and rocket sarnie. It was good to chat to someone else who was quite new to this type of event, I also bumped in to Jerome Bradpiece who had played the NLH/PLO ROE tournament. It was no good, apparently they had antes in the PLO rounds which seemed bizaare. They also played the same blind levels twice for each game (i.e. 25/50, 50/100 NL then 25/50, 50/100 PLO) which also seemed a bit odd to me.

Hey Ho! Let's Go...

I take my seat at my table and the first thing I notice is that the tables are unusually large to the point where the dealers can't even reach the chips when you make a bet. The other surprising thing was the standards of the dealers was really appauling. We had five dealers while I was playing, only two knew how to calculate the pot themselves which was annoying that the table had to keep correcting them. But on top of that several could barely deal itself, they were slow, kept flipping cards up as they pitched them, shuffles took forever, it was really shoddy.

I have two familiar faces at my starting table, a guy named Steve who was also at my table during the £300 PLO Double Chance at the Vic around a month ago. He seems like a pretty standard old school type player, decent, limps a lot pre-flop, but definitely capable of moves too. The second player I reckonise was a guy named Zarion (I think) he final tables the PLO event at the club along with me. He is also fairly decent, I feel quite easy to outplay post-flop because he can be a bit too tight, however he was on my left and I know he is decent enough so I will try to avoid him. I'm also very aware that he probably does not think that I am a very good player because there was a spot in the PLO at the club where I called his river raise when he had quads and I had a King-high flush. I thought he was bluffing, he had the absolutes, nevermind.

With a 10K starting stack and a 50 minute clock, I have already decided that I will try to keep it a bit tighter to begin with at least until I get used to my table a bit.

My table is fairly active from the get-go, a few players I notice seem unable to let go of marginal hands like two pair even under heavy betting on straightening boards. Slowly I begin to realise that the standard at my table is not great, I have one player to my left (Zarion) who I know can play, the person to my immediate right who I do not recognise also seem decent, but overall I'm happy.

Then the dynamic takes a massive change, mid deal a guy comes over to take his seat, he's late, the dealer tells him his hand is dead because he needs to verify everything and the deal as already started. The guy argues saying why should his hand be dead, here is my ID, etc, etc. This dealer is clearly massively inexperienced and one of the worst dealers I've ever had, gives in and lets the guy play his hand.

UTG pots, UTG+1 calls, our maniac repots, the button calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 gets out of the way. The flop is A-9-6, UTG pots, maniac repots, button passes, UTG calls. Turn is K. UTG pots it again, basically putting himself all-in, maniac snaps him off and it's UTG's A-6-x-x vs the maniac's J-J-T-3, river is the predictable Q as he gets it in with a gutshot and hits. Now don't get me wrong, I think getting it in with A-6 there is horrible, but a gutshot!!

I another example he calls a guy all-in on the flop with Q-Q-6-7 on an A-K-4 board, it was a 20K pot at 50/100. It's A-K-x-x he's up against, of course he gets there with a 5 on the turn and a 3 on the river. Baller.

This guy starts bossing the table, he plays appaulingly, but he's potting most hands preflop and its tricky to play against him. I keep waking up with hands I have to call his raises with, I find Q-J-9-8 or 7-6-5-4 those type of hands, or pairs with good back hands. This are the kind of hands that I also like to three-bet sometimes, but I can't with this guy because he calls 100% of the time and 80% of the time will pot any flop. So I decide the best thing to do is keep the pots small and and hope I hit and which point I know I will get paid.

Except I miss every flop! All my hands are legit but I just can't seem to hit a board.

My stack dwindles down to 6.5K calling raises or raising myself and it going nowhere, we're approaching the end of the second level (50/100) and my stack is getting a bit small for my liking. Fortunately, before the break I pick up a couple of pots to take me more or less up to my original starting stack.

The first hand there are one limper there a raise to 450, I call in position with A-K-Q-J with clubs. One of the blinds call and the maniac surprisingly passes.

The flop comes A-T-6 with Ace of clubs, it's checked round to me and I decide to check as well. Under normal circumstances I might have a bet here, to build the pot when I do hit and so I've got the initiative to take it away on later streets when I don't. However with this table bluffing isn't really an option on the flop so my bet wouldn't achieve a great deal.

The turn is the King of clubs also known as GIN! It goes check, then pot, I'm definitely raising, but I've got the nuts with the nut flush draw. The guy who potted it who is new to the table I already have pegged as a huge calling station, earlier he had cold called a three-bet with J-J-J-A no suits. Terrible. There were a few other examples, but I won't go in to them, I elect to just pot it knowing he will at least call.

The blind gets out of the way, and my customer obliges and calls.

River is an off-suit four, a massive brick. It's checked to me, I bet around half the pot, but he passes, my guess is he had a flush draw that missed. That was a nice sized pot to pick up.

A few hands later I pick up another smaller pot, its folded to me and I pot it with 9-9-J-Q with one suit (JQ spades), Zarion calls on my immediate left and the loose-passive station from the previous hand also calls.

The flop comes Q-6-4, check to me, I play it safe and check also, and Z checks too. Turn is 9, check, I bet around 3/4 of the pot, Z dwells on the raise before passing and the station passes too. Those two hands take me back up to 9.2K with the break in less than two minutes. After the hand, Zarion asks me truthfully would I call if he shoved, I told him I would and that I had a set. To be honest I probs would have said the same thing if I had three napkins and an empty condom packet, but I was honest, at least this time.

Goodbye Mr Z...

A couple of hands before the break and Zarion, one of the better players at the table and the player to my immediate left busts in horrible circumstances. He's in the BB, it goes pot UTG, call, call, button calls, fold to Z who now repots, UTG and two calls get out of the way, button now repots it. Zarion has a think, I think he definitely has AAxx but they are probs weak Aces and he is deciding whether to pass, I think he's put too much of his short-ish stack in to fold so he makes the call all-in.

He turns over A-A-Q-7 with one suit (hearts), his opponent is crushed with Q-Q-9-A one suit, dominated hearts. But a Q on the flop seals it and Zarion is out the door. I gotta say, I wasn't at all disappointed, the one outer was sickening but it was nice not to have a decent player in position on me.

My Exit Hand...

Shortly after I'm back from the break and things are going the same as before. We've had a few new players joining our table who seem just as bad as the previous, I've noticed a few times that there have been raises, three-bets which always get called, but twice so far the four-bet has managed to get through. Also our loose-passive station from earlier in the tournament has been slowly getting through his massive stack, he keeps calling light big bets but folding to the shoves, it's a huge leak and a few of them seem to have a similar problem.

It seems to me they don't understand PLO properly and obviously think any four cards are good and can hit the flop. These are the kind of people that call three-bets with 8-3 off in hold'em saying "any hand can be a winner on the flop" but fold to shoves because they know their flith is behind. It's a dream if you're picking up big hands, but I am pretty card dead at the moment and not finding any spots.

Eventually when my stack has dropped to around 7.6K I decide that it is time to start sticking up for myself, I can't keep waiting for hands at this table. I know I will get paid if I do wait, but I'm so card dead and my stack is just dwindling away, so I find this spot to get it in.

I'm on the button with Q-T-9-8 double suited, clubs and hearts, the original maniac from before has raised it to 400 blind with the blinds at 75/150, lucky QQ man flats, passive station flats, I flat call, SB now makes it 1,800, BB passes, maniac calls, luckyman calls, station calls and its on me.

I decide I can't call 1,800 out of my stack as much as I would like to getting great odds with a hand that plays excellently multi-way, it's just way too much of my stack. So it's either a fold or a shove. Given that I've seen people pass to this pushes already in similar situations and that by now if someone had a monster they would have shown it by raising it up to the original 1,800 and knowing the awful preflop hand selections of my opponents, I decide I want to try and win the 7,000+ chips that are in the middle now.

I look at my stack which seems to be around 8K in total, I think that should just be enough to pick up the pot since my opponents have roughly the following stack sizes: SB: 16K, maniac: 14K, luckyman: 9K and station: 20K. I figure given those stack sizes anyone with a genuine hand would have definitely got it in by now, also my stack at around 8K should be a large enough portion of post of the players to make them pass. The person I'm most worried about is probs the SB, but he has four people behind him so I don't think he's calling.

I shove and my stack is counted out as 7,925.

Now things go a bit mental, SB shoves, maniac calls, luckyman calls and station calls!!

We all turn our hands face up and I am amazed to see the junk I've been called with.

My Hand: Q-T-9-8 with reds and greens
SB: K-K-7-2 with no suits
Maniac: 9-5-4-2 with hearts (I have him dominated)
Luckyman: A-T-5-2 with diamonds
Station: A-3-3-6 with spades

I'm in disbelief over the junk I've been called with but at the same time happy knowing that I am favourite against these hands.

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=7600600
pokenum -o qc tc 9h 8h - kd kc 7h 2s - 9d 5h 4c 2h - ah td 5d 2d - as 3s 3c 6d
Omaha Hi: 201376 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Qc Tc 9h 8h 74916 37.20 125794 62.47 666 0.33 0.374
2s Kc Kd 7h 37163 18.45 164213 81.55 0 0.00 0.185
4c 9d 5h 2h 12547 6.23 184915 91.83 3914 1.94 0.072
Td 5d 2d Ah 21590 10.72 175206 87.00 4580 2.27 0.119
As 3s 3c 6d 50580 25.12 150770 74.87 26 0.01 0.251

The flop comes J-J-7

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=7600608
pokenum -o qc tc 9h 8h - kd kc 7h 2s - 9d 5h 4c 2h - ah td 5d 2d - as 3s 3c 6d -- jh js 7d
Omaha Hi: 406 enumerated boards containing Js Jc 7d
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Qc Tc 9h 8h 128 31.53 278 68.47 0 0.00 0.315
2s Kc Kd 7h 165 40.64 241 59.36 0 0.00 0.406
4c 9d 5h 2h 3 0.74 403 99.26 0 0.00 0.007
Td 5d 2d Ah 27 6.65 379 93.35 0 0.00 0.067
As 3s 3c 6d 83 20.44 323 79.56 0 0.00 0.204

The turn is a 5.

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=7600613
pokenum -o qc tc 9h 8h - kd kc 7h 2s - 9d 5h 4c 2h - ah td 5d 2d - as 3s 3c 6d -- jh js 7d 5c
Omaha Hi: 28 enumerated boards containing Js 5c 7d Jh
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Qc Tc 9h 8h 10 35.71 18 64.29 0 0.00 0.357
2s Kc Kd 7h 10 35.71 18 64.29 0 0.00 0.357
4c 9d 5h 2h 0 0.00 28 100.00 0 0.00 0.000
Td 5d 2d Ah 3 10.71 25 89.29 0 0.00 0.107
As 3s 3c 6d 5 17.86 23 82.14 0 0.00 0.179

River is obviously another Jay.

Kings ship the lot, the station has turned his 20K stack into a 4K stack because he can't pass 3-3-A-6 and three more players including me hit the rail. I leave the tournament unable to believe how sick that hand was and how I was the only person to get it in with a genuine hand. I am not happy at all, I have a rant on the phone to my girlfriend, text my backers before heading to the club in disbelief.

Overall I would rate my play as 9.9 out of 10 because this is a Cliff style report and to rate myself anything less than a 9 would just be silly.

In all seriousness, I was happy with the way I played, I had a terrible players at my table but the way the dynamics were it was difficult to find spots. I thought I found a good spot to gamble and try to pick up some chips, but I was wrong. Maybe I needed a bigger stack to do what I did, but to be honest given the hands they called with I don't think it would have mattered. Maybe I should pass to the 1,800 (or even call it) but I decided to take a stand and try to get chips. Had I won that hand I definitely think I would have been in a great position to make a top three finish.

Unfortunately it wasn't to be this time.

Finally, thanks to everyone that has backed me, sorry I couldn't ship it this time.

Marcus

Receipt

2010-10-02T10:12:00.000+01:00

Tricky Times...

2010-09-23T08:58:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-04T12:10:00.000+01:00

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!

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

2010-08-22T15:54:00.007+01:00

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!!!!

2010-08-18T20:44:00.000+01:00

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

2010-08-18T19:36:00.004+01:00

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

2010-08-17T12:56:00.000+01:00

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....

2010-08-16T11:17:00.000+01:00

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:

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

2010-08-15T14:00:00.002+01:00

"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...

2010-08-14T10:44:00.002+01:00

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...

2010-08-13T11:15:00.003+01:00

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...

2010-08-12T11:08:00.002+01:00

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...

2010-08-11T14:18:00.000+01:00

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...

2010-08-08T11:43:00.000+01:00

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...

2010-08-08T11:35:00.000+01:00

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.

New Born Kittens Part II...

2010-07-30T10:01:00.001+01:00

And this chunky bruiser is named Trigger. So now we have three cats in the house, The Three Tees! Twiglet, Trigger and Twirl. Twiglet seems to be okay with the babies, she took one little swipe at them yesterday but I think she was trying to play. That's just Twigs all over, she loves to play and always bats things about with her paws, so I'm not stressing about it at all.

New Born Kittens Part I...

2010-07-30T09:59:00.002+01:00

My girlfriend is a vet nurse and she brought home two of the cutest things ever, new born kittens! This is the girl and we named her Twirl.

All Gone...

2010-07-29T11:02:00.003+01:00

Last night I lost the final dollars that I still had on my PokerStars account.

It's a real shame, I felt I was playing well but a good run can't last forever. The hand where I busted felt standard, I had double suited Aces, I got it in preflop against KKJT with one suit, his suit made a flush. I was only playing 80BB so getting it all-in seems logical. Not much to moan about there.

I was playing with all of the cash in my account on one table, which isn't the best of ideas, but it's not like that was my entire bankroll so I'm not massively annoyed.

Yesterday I booked a week off of work during which time I'm going to make as many trips to The Vic as I can to play £1/£1 cash games, I might venture to the odd £1/£2 game or even the £1/£2 PLO game if it gets going. I think my bankroll can support me short stacking a £1/£2 PLO game now, and I feel live PLO is where I have my biggest edge. Until my break from work, I think I'm going to have a break from playing online, I might try to make the odd trip to The Vic though. Hopefully starting tomorrow.

I miss playing live and find it very enjoyable. Hopefully when I do go tomorrow I'll have a nice winning session to continue this good month, and continue building my bankroll, slowly but surely!

The Dream Has Ended...

2010-07-28T16:48:00.007+01:00

So after eight days of grinding (kind of) on the cash tables, I turned my $100 into over $6,200. Then last night I planned to continue that build up, but I had one horrific session, cold decks, outdraws and bad beats galore. I ended up dropping over $1,700 over various limits leaving me feeling shellshocked and angry. My PokerStars balance no longer looking glorious at $6,200, instead looked weak and feeble at just $4,500.

Today I decided to do the sensible thing, I withdrew roughly $3,100 (£2,000) and left the rest in there. I've already lost a further $500 of the remaining money when my top set and a nut flush draw couldn't beat my opponents second nut straight.

But still, I feel pleased with myself.

I have taken a $100 (£65) deposit, and I now have $3,100 (£2,000) of real money in my bank account, furthermore, I still have money online to play with. So while the dream has ended for now and I won't be spinning my $100 into the $20,000 I need to quit my job. There is still a very real chance that I can build the remaining money up again and I hope in one weeks time I will be posting up here how I withdrew another $3,000 that I can add to my growing bankroll.

I didn't withdraw at the high point of my account, but at least I banked something. And a very significant amount of money it is. Let's just hope everything continues to go according to plan.

Other Random Musings
I'm sick of work at the moment, I feel overworked and underpaid. I think that feel has been enhanced by a great week of poker making me want to pack it all in right now. One of my colleagues recently handed in my notice and I can't wait to follow him.

I think it's terrible that Sol Campbell has gone to Newcastle, he really added a maturity and presence that Arsenal can seriously lack at times. I will miss him in our squad.

Here is a funny video I saw on YouTube. The scene with Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken calling each other "eggplants" and "cantaloupes" is from True Romance. It is known as The Sicilian Scene and it's awesome, as long as you don't mind the use of the word nigger which Tarantino does love to use.

I've started posting on the Gutshot Forums again, the hand analysis helps me but I've got to be careful not to get too close into the poker circle again.

Oh and finally, I really need to make the time to get back down to The Vic. Live cash games is where I feel my biggest edge is and where I think I can make the most money. Not capitalising on that edge (especially when I'm trying to build a bankroll) is crazy. I must make more of an effort.

Great Week...

2010-07-25T20:37:00.000+01:00

WARNING: This is a brag entry!

One week ago I deposited $100 on to PokerStars. Just seven days later I now have over $6,000 in there. All from cash games, I have played about $500 worth of tournaments but haven't cashed once.

That is a great week of poker for me. I'm very pleased with myself, I have now reached the half way point of my bankroll building goal. If things keep going like this I'll have more like £20,000 by January!

A Mixed Bag...

2010-07-24T11:49:00.000+01:00

This week has been a bit of a mixed bag for me. In terms of my normal life, I'm sick to death of my job. We're understaffed and overworked, I'm effectively running a 300 client helpdesk by myself most of the time, this includes answering all the phone calls, dealing with all email requests, etc. on top of all my other work I have to do. I just don't have the time, I hope they're planning to employ some new engineers because if not I can see myself quitting very quickly.

On more of a poker level, everything is going well. I haven't had time to play as often as I would like at The Vic. Mainly because I'm so tired during the week and at weekends I tend to meet up with friends. I'm going to try and make a bit more time, because I think it's important to play on a regular basis. The bankroll building is going well, I have over $4,500 online. This is in addition to the £1,000 I have in my poker account. So I've got about £4,000 built up so far, with my goal of at least £10,000 by January looking more and more achievable.

But then the positives once again, get trumped by a negative and for me this is a huge one.

When I first decided that I'd like to play poker for a living, I knew I had the discipline, I knew I had the dedication. What I didn't know is if I had would have the backing of my friends and family. I decided at the time that I would make a list of pros and cons of playing for a living, just to make sure I was certain of my choice. One of the big cons was the stigma the job holds with my friends, previously they all thought I was extremely addicted, and I was, but I've matured and changed since then.

Once I'd made my decision I decided to start writing this blog to record my thoughts, as a well to vocalise everything and to keep my mind clear. I didn't want my friends to read it because I knew they would give me a hard time about it all. Unfortunately, one of my friends discovered this blog (Hi, Joseph, if you're reading!), I spoke to him and asked him not to tell anyone and explained my reasons. Obviously he didn't listen because last night when I met up with my friends, they were all aware of it and if they weren't he was sure to mention it to them. It pissed me off, but things got a bit worse when they once again started questioning whether or not I was addicted and telling me that I was stupid for playing this game of chance.

What my friends don't see when I play a session online is after the three or four hours of playing and grinding is the additional three or four hours that I spend sitting at my computer running over all my key hands and analysing my hands. What my friends don't see is the discipline that when I lose a major pot in a casino that has put me on tilt that I get up, cash out and go straight home. What my friends don't see is the discipline and dedication I put in to try and improve my game every day to ensure that I win as consistently as I possibly can.

I understand that to them it is just gambling and to them it is just a game of chance. But to me poker is so much more.

Poker is not a game of chance, there is chance involved but there's chance involved in backgammon. There's still an overwhelming amount of skill involved as well. There is a reason that most of the top backgammon and chess players in the world move into poker, because the skillsets are comparable and the money is fantastic.

I also understand that they care for me and don't want to see me get addicted. However, if I have the approval of my girlfriend who cares for me and loves me more than any of they do. She has also seen me through the best and worst moment of my poker career, yet she believes that I have overcome my problems and I can move forward. I have the approval of my parents, who I sat down and discussed my plans with, they have also been there when I lost the last of my money and needed to borrow some of them to eat for the month, yet they can see I've grown up and matured and I approach the game completely differently now.

To me, everything that happened in the past was a learning experience. Why can't my friends see that?

I don't like having to defend myself from them, I tend to try to ignore it but it does get to me. Joseph referenced the fact that I played before I went to work one day. This isn't a regular occurence, there was a fire in the forest when I was walking the dog (a tree was alight) so I called the fire brigade. They asked if they would be able to see the smoke from the street, I said no, so they asked me to wait by the phone in case they needed to call me. That means I was all ready to go to work, but I couldn't actually leave. I had an hour with nothing to do, so I decided to play a little online session of poker.

I made $500 or so that morning and tweeted about it, basically just saying I made a nice amount of money before I'd even got to work and I was pleased. Wouldn't everyone be pleased if they made a week's salary before they've had breakfast? I don't see what's so wrong with that. My friends obviously do.

It's annoying, but when I made my list of pros and cons, I knew this would be a problem so I'll just have to deal with it.

On a lighter note, I met up with my friend Eshu on Thursday who took me to a little pub game in Angel. It was a £10 rebuy with a terrible standard of play and about 30 to 40 runners. I had a bit of fun there, donated around £40 to the prize pool (two rebuys and an add-on). The structure is fast, so I played quite aggressively to try and amass chips during the rebuy period, getting it in with any draws I could aiming to hit and build up a stack. By the end of the rebuy period I was on around 20K and up with the chip leaders, it didn't last long as I ended up running AK soooooted into Aces, as well as AQ soooooted into AK off-sweet.

Afterwards, I got involved in the 25p/25p cash game, with a live straddle around to the button. Again the standard was terribled and I managed to cash out £75 from there which was a nice result. It was good fun and a friendly atmosphere, a far cry from the places I normally play. I think I will go there on a regular basis. The people seem nice, and there is a lot of value in the cash game. It's just a shame it's on a school night because on Friday morning I was knackered.

Other Random Musings
Floyd Mayweather Jr vs Manny Pacquiao doesn't look like it's happening. "Money" Mayweather is playing stupid games, claiming no negotiations have taken place. I've always said he was a punk, an uber-talented punk, but a punk nonetheless. I think this confirms it, he's pussying out on a $40 million payday because he knows he can't hang with someone with the speed, power and talent of the dynamic Pinoy idol. The only word that I think describes this situation is DISAPPOINTING.

My younger brother put me on to a good website run by his friend. The guy is professional gambler and bets on the horses for a living, he posts up tips on a daily basis and seems to have a pretty good success with them. I personally don't gamble much, but will have the odd flutter on this. My friend, Ste, went to Newmarket yesterday for his girlfriend's birthday, I gave him a tip on Lujeanie each way in the 7:40, he put a fiver one and apparently got an £80 return. Not too shabby.

I think I'm gonna try and get tickets to the live WWE show at the O2 Arena in November. It'll be part of a birthday gift to my girlfriend for her 24th. Let's hope Rey Mysterio will be performing, because she loves him and his high-flying lucha-libre style.

I need to lose weight.

The IMAX is the hardest cinema to get tickets too! I need to make more of an effort to book in advance when I want to see a big film there. I was desperate to watch Inception there, but it's booked out until the end of August. I think I'll have to go see it at VUE Islington or something. I'll be sure to book Tron well in advance, that is going to be absolutely epic.

London Poker Championships...

2010-07-19T22:51:00.003+01:00

This weekend I decided to play in the London Poker Championships held at the Grosvenor London Victoria Casino on Edgware Road. The event was a £300 + £30 buy-in two day No Limit Hold'em event. Because it was outside of my bankroll, I decided to sell some of my action. I sold 50% to various friends in 10% chunks of £33, this allowed me to buy into the event for just £165 but I would obviously be sacraficing far more if I managed to take the event down.

If I'm completely honest, I think having my non-poker friends invest in me affected me slightly. With poker mates they know what they are getting in to, these guys don't. I mean they do to a certain degree, but they don't have such a knowledge of the game that I do. As a result, I felt pre-tournament nerves that I don't normally feel. Nothing major, just a little apprehensive. I knew they would go as soon as I sat at the table.

After buying in for the afternoon start (it was split into two flights) we got under at 2pm. With 10,000 starting stack, a 40 minute clock and the blinds starting at 25/50 I knew there was absolutely no rush to get involved in big pots.

Things started slowly for me, but there was one or two players getting involved in 5K pots within the first few hands. It was good to sit back and watch them, and I learnt a lot about those three players. It wasn't long before one of them busted out, I had identified him as a weak player but fortunately there was still one more weak player at the table.

I saw him involved in a pot where in position in a three-bet pot he called down with AT on a T-3-4-7-8 board after it being fired three times from the preflop raiser and called by the player in the middle all three times. The three bettor had QQ to win the pot, but it was an interesting hand. Identifying the calling station allowed me to pick up a nice 5K pot from him shortly after.

Key Hand #1
Pocket Jacks vs Calling Station

With the blinds at 75/150 I am sitting with a stack of 11.5K where I have picked up the odd pot here and there. I haven't actually shown down any hands yet. There has been one limper in mid position, it's Mr Calling-Station. I raise it up to 725, the button and the blinds get out of the way, but as expected, Mr C-Station calls.

My Hand:

The two of us see the flop.

The Flop:

Mr C-Station checks to me, I bet out 1,250 into the 1,675 pot and he calls me. Now I'm not too sure what he could be calling me with, but judging from how passively he played the previous hand there is definitely a King in his range. Depending on the turn, I think I'm going to slow down a little.

The Turn:

My opponent checks to me again, deciding to exercise a bit of pot control and not to get into a tricky situation I check back.

The River:

Once again, my opponent checks to me. As far as I'm concerned three checks on the bounce is all the information I need to know that I should bet this and bet a decent amount. There is currently 4,175 in the pot, so I decide to bet out 3,175.

He dwells for a moment and calls, I show my hand and it's good enough to take down the pot. My opponent mucks and I don't get to see his hand. I find it disrespectful to ask to see an opponents hand when they muck so I didn't exercise that right. Either way, I'm glad I won the pot.

After that hand, I went through a dry spell, not quite connecting with the flop, not getting cards, unable to find any good spots in order make a move. Then the following hand happened.

Key Hand #2
The Bullets on a King High Flop

We were approaching the end of the 100/200/25 level, my stack had slipped down to about 12K when I found myself on the button with an absolute monster. With the antes now in play (they come in early in this structure) I have decided to start getting more aggressive and have already three-bet about four hands previously and got a fold. Importantly, the three-bet was also to the same opponent. The first time he raised with AJ, I three-bet with AK, he folded (and showed), I mucked.

My Hand:

The big stack at the table (just doubled up with a dubious turn call to river a flush) has been getting more active. It's folded to him and he raises it up to 800 from mid position. He had been varying his raises between 600 and 1100, I hadn't seen any hands to pick up any reads on what the sizes meant. It's folded to me and I find the bullets, I elect to raise. I make it 1,850 and everyone gets out of our way, this time my opponent makes the call.

The Flop:

The all black flop made me a bit uncomfortable because I didn't want to have to face some crazy check-raise and can't decide if my opponent was on a draw or not. However, having the Ace of spades eases that a bit. My opponent checks to me, and I decide to keep up the story. With 4,225 in the pot, I decide to bet out 2,800.

The villain quickly makes the call.

The Turn:

There is now 9,825 in the pot, I have roughly 7.3K left of my stack. My opponent eyes me up before asking how much I have behind, I move my hand from my stack so he can see for himself but I don't speak. He then annouces that he'll put me all-in.

I dwelled. And I dwelled. And I dwelled some more. I studied my opponent as he counted out the chips required to put me all-in. He seemed confident, I tried to decide what hands he could have in his range. Given that he folded AJ to me, I can assume that whatever he's called me with is at least a somewhat reasonable holding.

I think I can eliminate KK, QQ from his range. JJ, 55, 77 are all very possible, as is AK. I don't think he makes this move with TT, 99 or 88. If he folds hands like AJ, then I think he most likely folds hands like KQ, KJ. Overall, I just couldn't see how I could be ahead added to the fact I felt I was one of the better players at the table I begrudgingly folded.

I decided to show my fold to try and induce my opponent to show his cards. It worked.

My Opponent's Hand:

I made the right fold and I had lost the minimum in the hand.

Key Hand #3: My Final Hand
Straight Flush Draw Against a New Opponent

By now my stack and been diminished to just 6K and the blinds were now at 150/300/25. The ante was eating away at my stack, slowly but surely. Two big stacks had joined my table and they were active, plus two smaller stacks (10BB range) kept pushing all-in and I just couldn't find any spots to three-bet late position raisers or generally get involved to try and gain chips.

I decided it was time to take some risks, and try to see some flops so that I can either hit something or try to outplay my opponents. With several limpers in the pot, and I was on the button, I decided this was a good time to try and see a cheap pot.

My Hand:

Two limpers already and on the button I put 300 in so I can get involved in the fun as well, the small blind completes and the big blind checks.

The Flop:

This is what is popularly known as a Dream Flop.

My up and down straight flush draw was huge for me, and I had every intention of getting in as many chips on the flop as I possible could. The small blind checks, the big blind leads out with a bet of 1,500 into a 1,750 pot. The two mid position limpers quickly get out of the way and the action is on me, with 3,250 in the pot and I just have a 6,000 stack, there was more than enough in there for me.

I moved all-in!

The small blind folded like a cheap hooker who got punched in the stomach. The big blind however didn't. He dwelled for a moment and before declaring that he thought I was making a move, I thought he must have a weak Jack and isn't sure whether to get involved. How wrong I was! After about two minutes the big blind makes the call.

My Opponent's Hand:

I couldn't believe it! That was perfect, I'm not sure what he put me on but whatever happens I'm glad he came to the decision. With any 2, 5, 6, 7 or club as outs I had 23 cards to give me the winning hand, close to half the deck. Twice!

The Turn:

Not great, but still I have 2, 7 or clubs!

The River:

Fuck. My. Life.

I ran the numbers on the hand, and I was a 68.89% favourite when all the money went in. My 23 outs to hit on the turn or the river made me a decent favourite, unfortunately, my hand wasn't made and I did still need to hit. This time I didn't and I went home as a result.

I didn't feel overly disappointed, I felt I played well the whole tournament, albeit briefly. Even the hand that eliminated my I couldn't feel too bad about because I didn't do a single thing wrong, I got the money in when I had close to half the deck to hit and my opponent made a hero call with a marginal hand that held.

As long as I get into spots like this everytime I'm in a tournament it won't be long before I get a big score and that's good enough for me!!

Disappointing Day...

2010-07-14T21:23:00.000+01:00

When I arrived home after a long and very stressful day of work I felt like playing some poker. So I loaded up PokerStars and registered for a few low stake tourneys. I entered the $20 Big Ante, $20 Cubed, Daily $40K GTD and a few more microstake tournaments.

Straight away I couldn't find my concentration. I was misplaying hands, misreading players and generally just dicking off my money. Within an hour I was out of all five tournaments I registered for. Tonight I had a disappointing performance playing poker and it's my own fault. It wasn't a huge amount of money lost but that isn't the point.

If I want to play I need to put 100% of my concentration into playing and make sure that I play to the best of my ability. Today I simply didn't do that and I am very disappointed in myself. If I want to do this for a living then I need to make sure my focus is there every time I sit down at the table, live or online.

Otherwise I shouldn't even consider playing as my main income. This is an old lesson, let's hope I won't have to relearn it. Again.

Tournament Report: Sunday Warm-up Part I...

2010-07-12T20:38:00.002+01:00

On Sunday I decided to play the PokerStars Sunday Warm-up. I had intended to play the Sunday Millions, but being the optimistic kinda lad I am I thought I didn't wanna stay up until 7.30am (the normal finishing time for the final table) to play. That's right, I just assumed I'd reach the final table. No one can ever accuse me of lacking confidence. So instead, I just decided to play the Warm-up which starts at the more respectable time of 18:00.

After about five and a half hours of play, I ended up busting out in 119th for $975. Not a terrible cash for my $215 outlay, but I certainly felt disappointed. Below are a few key hands from the tournament along with some brief analysis of the play.

Key Hand #1
Bluffing with Straight Flushing Board

Blinds: 75/150
Position: Hijack
My Stack: 10,654

My Hand:

The Preflop Action:
UTG raises it to 400, it's folded to me, I call the raise looking to flop a set. Everyone else folds. So we are heads up to the flop.

The Flop:

The Flop Action:
My opponent leads out for 565. With the texture of this flop I obviously don't think I have the winning hand, I expect I'm probs beat from the preflop raise but I'm only calling to hit my set. However, this board is unlikely to have hit my opponent either since he is a UTG raiser I can generally credit him with a stronger than normal holding, I heavily weight his range to medium to high pairs and two high cards (AK, AQ, etc). With that in mind, I decide this wet flop is not very nice and to try to rep the flush. What would I do if I had Ace-Rag of Spades? I would call, so that's what I do. I smooth call his bet.

The Turn:

The Turn Action:
My opponent leads out for 995. The turn is potentially an action killing card, if he did have those medium pairs, and they hit the flop then he has now housed up. At the same time though, if he did have Aces, Kings, even bottom two and lower straights, he can't really stand up to too much heat. I decide to stick to my story. If I had a flush here, what would I do? I would raise to protect my hand and to get some more money into the pot. This would be a great time to raise (if I did actually have the nut flush) because he has already fired two bullets on this wet flop so must have something to proceed with, let's see what that something is. I raise to 2,250. My opponent calls. Barring a Trey, I should be done with this hand.

The River:

The River Action:
The villain checks to me. I should check back and just get the hand over with, I've made my move. It hasn't worked that should be the end of it. Solid advice, I wish someone told me that last night. I bet 2,966 into the 6,655 pot, my opponent check-raises me all-in (7,310) and I, obviously, fold.

Overall I'm happy with the way the hand played out, with the exception of the river. I think the final bet was needless and was too large a portion of my stack to really be worthwhile. The blinds were due to increase soon and this pot left me with just 20BB. Not the best position in the world. I think I got too greedy too early and tried to amass chips too quickly.

Key Hand #2
Double up with Pocket Eights

Blinds: 200/400
Position: UTG+1
My Stack: 5,473

My Hand:

The Preflop Action:
With just 13BB, no position and a reasonable hand, I decided rather than getting tricky I would just open shove and try to win the blinds. So I moved all-in. I received one call from the button.

The Flop:

The Turn: and The River:

My Opponent Mucks:

Key Hand #3
Stacking Opponent Holding Jacks

Blinds: 400/800/50
Position: Cutoff
My Stack: 31,985

My Hand:

The Preflop Action:
Okay, so since my 88 double up I've built my stack up including another double up holding KK and getting it against AK. When this strange hand happened, UTG had raised from this position in the last three rounds which was quite suspicious, this was no different as he raised to 2,400. This time I woke up with a hand and decided to put him to the test. I three-bet him to 7,171 with my fish hooks. He calls.

The Flop:

The Flop Action:
I'm quite happy with this flop, I don't ever expect my opponent to have the straight and so I only fear the set. Once he checks to me, the set is even beginning to leave my mind as last time he had a set he bet a small amount (about 1/5 of the pot) and continued to do so on all three streets. So I bet 7,899 into a 15,992 pot. My opponent calls.

The Turn:

The Turn Action:
My opponent checks to me again, now with four cards to the straight on the board, I don't think he is ever checking a set twice. It's too risky. Furthermore, based on the way I have previously seen him play his hands I am all but ruling out being beat here and act accordingly. He only has 10,306 left and the pot is over 30,000 so I set him all-in. Now I distinctly remember he snap-called me, and I got very scared that maybe I'd misread him. I hadn't.

The River:

My Opponent Shows:

And I receive a healthy boost to my stack. Okay, I'm gonna have a break there, I'll write up the rest of the key hands tomorrow. That'll include a two bullet bluff that fails, getting it in behind while short stacked three times and binking my dream card as well as my final hand, which was AQ vs AT blind on blind (and this time I was on the right end of the preflop statistics).

Until next time, cheerio.

Tournament Focus...

2010-07-09T23:57:00.001+01:00

With much of the world's attention being taken up by the World Cup, I have been focusing on tournaments of my own. Online poker tournaments have never been a strong point of mine, so recently I have decided to focus more and more attention to them. I have self-excluded myself from Full Tilt to avoid the temptation of their softer PLO games and deposited a few hundred dollars on to PokerStars, home to some of the best tournaments on the tinternet.

After calling in sick on Wednesday with an illness which is best described as an brown waterfall descending from my anus I started at my task. My goal: Improve my online tournament performances and results. I made the hefty outlay of $174 to play six tournaments including the $109 $45K Guaranteed. All was going well in the tournament and I found myself amongst the chip leaders as we reached the bubble stage. Things were going well, however, not long after the bubble this spot happened.

My Hand:

With the blinds at 150/300/25, UTG +1 raises to 600. Now I notice that the big blind is currently sitting out, and I see this as a good opportunity to try and pick up some chips. With that in mind, I three-bet to 1,996 (love random figures, good old internet poker) looking to pick up the pot there and then with minimal fuss. However, while the blinds fold, the villain of the hand calls the extra 1,396 to go to the follow.

Positives on the move: Three-bet is a good idea and would be successful enough of the time to show profit. Even though he has called, I'm in the cut-off so I have position on him. Negatives of the move: I should have raised more to discourage his call. One person suggested I should raise enough that he either has to four-bet shove or fold. That seems sensible to me.

The Flop:

Villain checks to me, and I bet 2,345, he now click-raises me to 4,690. This is highly suspicious, however I feel that given my position in addition to the fact that I have already three-bet the hand before, I may be able to take it off him if his is check-raising me with a hand like KQ. Furthermore, I believe that if he does have a hand like 78 for example, a King or a Trey on the turn should put me into the lead.

The Turn:

In the words of Hans Landa.... IT'S A BINGO! The dastardly villain checks to me again, now I feel he is giving up on his hand and I should bet for value to try and win further monies. Betting also allows me to protect my hand from the flush draw that has appeared on the turn. And so I do, betting 6,789 but my opponent check-raised me all-in to 10,679. With just 3,890 to call, I don't even hesitate, I don't like it but with the ods I'm getting I have to call.

My Opponents Hand: and The River:

I'm left with a tiny stack, just a little over three big blinds, the following hand it's folded to me with A9 and I get it in to be outdrawn by KJ or something similar. And that was the end of my tournament. So why am I posting this hand? Well it's not just the fact that it was a major pot loss for me, but it's more that I wasn't entirely happy with how I played the hand, so let's break it down and look at it.

I have already covered the preflop three-bet earlier, and while it is not a move for the faint of heart and certainly is high risk. I think it this situation it's a good opportunity to pick up a few extra chips. A light three-bet will often show profit, the fact that the BB is sitting out just adds to the value. The problem is on the flop, why am I betting this flop? My preflop raise was a bluff, but now I have hit a hand. By betting it I'm turning that hand into a bluff when I actually have something, because I don't think I'm betting my bottom pair for value.

One player that I really respect a great deal, Sam "The Squid" Grafton suggested that once I've bet the flop I should jam on his check-raise. I like this idea, it puts pressure on to a small stack than myself and continues my story of having a strong hand. I've reraised preflop, bet the flop then jammed on the check-raise. The only hands that can call me in that situation are sets, and he can't have pocket Fours everytime! Overall though I think I would be best served if I didn't make the marginal three-bet in the first place, I definitely felt I had an edge over the table and I don't need to get into these spots.

Once I have done it, I think I should check on the flop. I don't know what I want to achieve with my bet, in other words, I don't know what I want my opponent to do. A call and I shutdown, a check-raise and I've just wasted money and should fold (I didn't because it was a min check-raise so felt priced in to fish) and if he does fold then I've just lost value on the hand. So what do I want to achieve here? One argument is that I would bet strong hands here so surely I should bet weaker hands to keep my range balanced. I think that argument has logic, but Sam described it as outdated.

He has a point, the game has changed so much and continues to change, c-betting with huge frequency just isn't as successful as it used to be as players get more gutsy and the standard gets higher. They will check-raise you air and then you'll find yourself in an even more difficult spot. Once the turn comes, I think it's a cooler and hard to get away from. But you could argue I shouldn't have been in that spot in the first place and your argument would have a lot of merit.

All in all, I don't think I massively misplayed the hand but certainly made a few errors that I should avoid. But at least by analysing it as I have and discussing it with people I respect (all of whom are better players than I am) then I can iron out the flaws in my game. Which will hopefully result in some serious money coming my way!

My Pets Part II...

2010-07-04T12:18:00.001+01:00

This is Twiglet, named after the snacks that have kept me going after many a long hour at the poker table. She's nice and chilled during the day, snoozing on top of the radiator. But at 22:45 every single day she goes mental, it can be a bit of a nightmare.

My Pets Part I...

2010-07-04T12:16:00.001+01:00

My beautiful pooch, Marley. No, not after Marley and Me, after Bob Marley. He was originally my folks dog but they moved somewhere that they couldn't have pets so I inherited him. I wanted to call him Nesta, the great Bob Marley's middle name. But like the big man himself, my old man thought it was too girly.

Responsible Gaming...

2010-07-03T13:48:00.003+01:00

Last night was our office poker game, a 10p/25p NLHE cash game with a buy-in of £5. That's right, we were playing deep stacked poker with 20 big blinds. No one knows how to play properly, but everyone enjoys a game. I, very kindly, offered to provide all the equipment and dealing services that you could expect in The Big Game. I pulled out the poker table top, brought my chips round, postillions, fresh cards, buttons, everything you need for a good game of poker that no normal person would ever own.

After watch Ghana's disappointing and hugely regretable exit from the World Cup, the game got going and it was the same thing as always. A limp fest full of calling stations and bad plays, I was busy doing all of the dealing to really get involved too much. Normally when I host games with people who half know how to play I feel I have a responsibility to drive the action and make sure people have fun, otherwise everyone just plays super tight because they think that's the right way to play. It's dull for all involved. Last night, I didn't feel that urge so much, which was for the best because I don't think a single bluff or a single move would ever work out for me with this guys at the table.

By the end of the night, the £35 total buy-ins had grown to £110, with only two rounds remaining I found myself with a £90 stack and only three players left (the rest hand lost enough money for the night). I was starting to feel bad. As the only regular poker player I didn't want to go there and take everyone's money, they were my colleagues and my friends. So in a bid to make it a little fairer and not look like a dick, I deliberately lost back £30 in the space of about 20 minutes.

As Uncle Ben in Spiderman once said, with great poker skills comes great responsibility. On that night my responsibility was to ensure everyone had a good evening and I didn't come across as the only skilled player taking advantage of a bunch of newbies.

Responsible gaming pops up in all different forms of poker. It's those little tools that will ban you from playing for as long as you choose. It's the discipline to stop playing when things aren't going your way. It's strength to find the fold that you know is right when there is doubt in your mind. Each and every time you sit down at a poker table, whether it's online, in a casino or at your boss' house, you have a responsibility to yourself to make sure you do the right thing.

Otherwise you have no business playing this game.

Other Random Musings
The legend that is Scotty Nguyen follows me on Twitter. I know he probably just follows anyone that follows him, but still, it's an honour to have a legend of the game amongst my list of followers. Let's hope he enjoys the blog, baby!

I'm 24 years old and I still like to watch WWE, plus I'm British, wrestling isn't even popular over here. Is there something wrong with me? I'm not one of these poncy people who won't watch a show or a film just because it's uncool. If it entertains, it entertains, and wrestling is just like Eastenders except more. What's wrong with that?

Andy Murray was disappointing in his loss to Nadal. Murray was playing so well and just crumbled, he needs to find the bottle to battle through because he has the talent. This may have been his best chance with Federer out of sorts and Nadal was nursing a knee injury, but he let it slip.

And finally, Twitter is surprisingly addictive! Suddenly I see what it's so popular after previously thinking it was just a waste of time.

My Game, My Rules...

2010-06-30T14:22:00.000+01:00

I have been addicted in the past, and I don't want that to happen again. I don't want to get onto that slippery slope and because of that I've made myself a set of strict rules that I intend to adhere too. Everytime I break one of these rules I'm going to donate some money to charity and stop playing for two weeks. These rules are a little bit more relaxed in terms of bankroll management than some, this is mainly because I'm just starting out and will be playing smaller, lower variance games. Plus I will mainly be playing live where there just aren't games smaller than £1/£1 available.

My overall goal is to build a bankroll of £10,000 and prove to myself that I can maintain discipline and follow my strict rules. If I adhere to the rules I've set out and prove that I am a winning player (through meticulous record keeping) then I want to turn professional by January 2011.

Never play with more than 10% of my bankroll in a live cash game
Never use more than 5% of my bankroll to enter a live tournament game
If playing online, only use 5% for cash games (full ring and 6-max)
If playing online, only use 2.5% for heads-up cash games
If playing online, only use 2.5% for tournaments (both MTT and STT)
If I lose two buy-ins then I must end the session
Only play one session per day
No session should last more than eight hours
Do not play more than three sessions in a week
If I lose five sessions in a row then have a one week break
If I lose ten sessions in a row then have an additional two week break
Never drink alcohol when playing
Only tip up to 2.5% of the pot to the dealers while playing
Tip up to 2.5% and up to £25 at the end of a session
Dress for success (i.e. have “work” clothes when I plan to play live)
Record every single session
Note any key hands during sessions
Maintain a poker blog to keep record of my progress and express my emotions

I'm sure there are more rules that I could add to this, and I will as time goes along. But these are my rules for the next six months as I attempt to turn my £2,000 starting bankroll into £10,000 bankroll that I think I require to play professionally on £1/£2 NLHE and PLO tables. I'm happy at that level and have no real desire to go higher at the moment, on a £1/£2 table on a good night I can make close to a month's wages.

That suits me just fine.

Twitter...

2010-06-28T17:43:00.001+01:00

I have created a Twitter account. Feel free to follow my microblogs on there where I will update whenever I publish a new blog post on this main site as well as give various musing when I feel like it.

You can follow me here: http://twitter.com/potamophobia

Introduction...

2010-06-28T17:42:00.004+01:00

This is therapy!

I am a poker addict. I started playing poker in sixth form at a friend's house during lunch breaks and free periods. We didn't know what to do, we knew the rough rules but that was it. So in an effort to improve our lunch time sessions I decided to learn the game, I started by playing online on Everest Poker. Depositing $10 here, $20 there, $200 when I could afford it.

I would lose consistently.

Eventually a colleague introduced me to a local poker club where I befriended the fellow degenerates and I honed my abilities. I finally became profitable, and as I become a better player I became more addicted. While my skills at the table improved my money management didn't. Soon I was given a job at the poker club and that is where things turned bad.

I started to neglect my friends and family, and was concentrating more and more on poker. Eventually things took a turn for the worst and I ended up getting into a fight which resulted in me losing my job. I won't go into what the fight was about, but I will say that I blame poker for what happened.

That was well over a year ago now and since then I have moved into a nice flat with my girlfriend, sorted out my money situation, sorted out my life and found a new sense of direction. However, the love, the passion, the addiction is still there. Recently, I've decided to give poker another go, I know how low I sunk, I know how bad it can get, and I'm hoping I've learnt from my mistakes.

Because I can't afford to go there again!

Playing poker for a living is the dream. This is my chance to live that dream, but I know I am still addicted so I need to manage that addiction. This blog will be my therapy when things get rough and help me maintain my discipline and if it doesn't, then every car crash moment as my life falls to pieces will all be blogged here for your amusement.

So why "Confessions of a Potamophobic Gambler"?

Potamophobia is the fear of rivers and running water, the final card dealt on the board during Texas Hold'em also holds the nickname "the river" and the hand isn't over until the river is out. Sometimes the river can make your hand, sometimes it can break it, but every single hand dealt there is always one thing in common... You fear the river!