LeKnave

Long time no post...

2008-11-08T09:56:00.014Z

October was a pretty sick month including my most successful day to date. I managed to scoop the party 500f for 18K and the party 100f for an extra 5.5K on the same sunday. Managed to win that same 100f 12 days later for another 5.5K. Thats the main online success out the way.

Went on quite a few live trips in Oct + early Nov including APAT £300f, Dublin €150f, Teeside £500f, DTD £300f as well as a couple of drunken trips to the Alea.

Went pretty deep in the APAT and busted about 18th or so. Got a tonne of chips together but it got pretty crapshooty and i busted jamming ATo into the btn opens AA.

Ireland was total com, flew over on friday morning with Brent, Sledge and Rich. Got stuck into the torny straight away and managed to have a sick last few levels going from 30K to 180K. We got the day off on saturday so went into Temple Bar to watch some footy and have a few drinks. Ended up at the Fitzwilliam for the €120f, somehow Maria, Rooks, Sledge, Brent and myself all ended up on the same table, so hilarity ensued everytime any1 lost a pot. Me and Rooks kept getting slowrolled before i finally busted. Don't go to dublin if u hate slowrollers imo. Day 2 of the torny started off slow, then I upped it a bit nearing the bubble. Managed to win a huge pot with AK > AQ to get to about 400K but got into 2 really awkward spots where I couldn't fold to jams and ended up losing A2 vs 99, AT vs AK for a huge one and finally ran K8h into 99 vs the eventual winner to bust 49th for €650.

Teeside was very uneventful pokerwise for myself, i never got going at all and was below my starting stack all day, before 3bet jamming 6K over a LP 1.2K open and the bb colded it with AQc before the board rolled off Tc-Jh-Js-6c-6h, pretty imposible to fade that river. Managed to nip 5% of Trigg who scooped a cool £9diiimes for 4th, should've had the lot but ran tez on the final. Nearly got me out anyway. Rich bubbled it which was pretty com, see it in all its glory here: http://www.thenutz.tv/videodetail.php?video_id=68044.

DTD £300f in early november was eqally dull, and again i never got above 10K. Sick beat to start the day was us all registering late and ended up on the same table with 2 other decent players. Obv i reg'd first so had seat 2 with trigg seat 3, decent player in 4, middy in 5, rich in 6 and another decent player in 7. so f sick. Busted by open jamming 5900 in the c/o with A5o @ 200/400/50 and ran into the bb's AJo. gg.

November has started off pretty tez online dropped about $5.4K so far. Not ideal lol, been running really bad in a lot of spots. I think i've probs been playing sub-par too, but hopefully can grind through it. Got some big stuff coming up online soon, including laddies leocop main, ftops, party 2m, and ecoop. Be good to run like the sun in one of those.

September...

2008-09-29T21:38:00.002+01:00

Been a while since I updated last (orly?). Have had a winning month up til now, but its been pretty swingy. Had a +$10K day early ish with winning the tilt 20r for $6K and 2nd in the pty 100f for a further 3.5K then 2 $1K cashes in pty30r and wcoop#1. Since then I had a tough grind through dusting off about 1-2K most days i played, but i wasnt putting that much volume in tbf.

One sunday I felt i achieved something, I was getting hammered all day and managed a 2nd in the pty30r but still needed another 2K to get out, so i extended my session til the 4am's and managed to go deep in the stars 100f coming like 4th or thereabouts for $2100. Scoop the +$100 day!

Then came blondebash with Rich + Ty, bombed down at redic o'clock in the morning. 1 crucial service station full english and a 3 hour car ride later, we were pulling into sunny luton. The weekend was a great crack sharing a table with flushy, at it bradley and maldini for decent spells was hilarious. Got some chips after spiting jizzems 3bet jam over my open with 82s for 90% of my stack and binking vs his AJo. After that it was pretty rosy. With 10 left me and maldini got into a monster pot. I held AQc and opened to ~9500 @ 2/4K and he peeled from the bb, it rolled off Jc Tc Th and he c/r my 13,500 bet to 53,500. I jammed him in for another 20-30Kish and he called with KJo, a brick on the turn and a lovely 2c on the river and i was 1/9 with 210K of the 666K! mbn. Ran pretty cold on the final and could only manage 4th lol.

The sunday was v comedy we dusted the HU instantly and began flipping each other, this resulted in me rich maldini and dunk sitting down to flip with cards, soon amatay and bongo were involved for £2 a hand @ random games, it all spiralled and soon we had a 10 handed game going with sidebets for scooping hi/lo pots and making 5 of a kind (2 decks got involved). If an all red flop rolled off the seats 6-10 were dead, and if 3 blacks flopped seats 1-5 were dead, a classic moment was when a 3 red flop rolled out and maldini shouts ''send it all over here, im huge, im massive here''. Ironsides cheer upon scooping a hi/lo pot before his face dropping when he realised a 12 man round was coming out his pocket. Was all quality fun many people mainly amatay and celtic were seen walking away shouting ''i've done my fkin bollox @ £2 showdown, fml''.

Managed another winning sunday yesterday to the tune of about $4200. Could have been a big one when i made the tilt 163f final 1/9 with $29.5K ftw but i busted 7th after semi butchering a hand vs irish_chop who went on to win the lot. Got $3800 for this and another $2400 for 2nd in the pty6K 100f.

Finally booked ireland trip and will be going to dtd this weekend for the 300f. Hopefully will win the lot for once live.

In life news, uni has started and should be ok, hopefully il stick with it and scramble a degree in 3 yrs!

Props to Ben mfkin Turnstill who scooped the absolute lot in the tilt brawl for a lovely $73diiiiiiiime score. Beers on him in Dublin imo.

DTD + Downswings...

2008-08-30T12:58:00.010+01:00

I was planning on doing a detailed trip report of the dtd500 but i've left it a while and so most details are sketchy. Pre the dtd500 my downswing had hit $9.8K so a score in the 500 would have been appreciated.

Middy got to mine about midday and we went down the road to pick up Floppy. The drive down to notts was easy enough despite totally missing claimer at the holiday inn bar arranged for 1:15. Probs due to us pissing about in Leeds for ages, we checked into the room and got off to dtd asap. I wasn't at my first table for too long, but i had one hand of interest:

Stack: ~15K, BB: ~12K. I hold JTo in the cut off @ 25/50
Preflop: folds to me and i raise to 150, btn folds, sb folds, bb defends.

Flop: Js 5d 9d, he checks and i fire 200, he calls.

Turn: 5c, he checks and i shell 400, he c/r'd to 1000. Being so early i didn't have much to go on here, folding seemed super weak so i decided id take one off and see how he reacted to the river.

River: 6c, he leads out 2500, i tank for quite a while, and look over to him and hes just staring at me, this is kindof a standard attempt to look super strong by an inexperienced live player. With this and that he doesn't show up with a 5 often enough to make it a fold, i call and he mucks.

I get a table change and then another one, i end up in seat 1 on a table where i know a few people, Steve Jellinek was in seat 2, Dave Colclough in seat 8 and Daniel Rudd (upthemariners) in seat 9. So not the most excellent table change considering how bad the field was in general.

I can't really remember many hands from this spell, but i chip up to 20K and then decide it'll be a good idea to shell off half of it:

My stack: ~20K, BB: ~12K. I am dealt KQo in the cutoff @ 150/300/25.

Preflop: folds to me and i raise 850, btn folds, sb folds and bb defends.

Flop: T54r, bb checks and i fire out 1100 which he calls pretty quickly.

Turn: 5, bb checks over again and i decide to shell a second barrel of 3150 out there to rep an over pair, he again calls.

River: J, he checks over again and i think he can't be overly strong and a 3rd barrel should blow him out a lot of the time, so i blast out 6200 in there and he goes into the tank. He looks as if hes going to muck and then rolls 6200 in and tables 88. Pretty sick call down, I guess he didnt think i'd go for 3 full streets of value with QQ+, and could probs only expect me to have JJ or a bluff.

So down to 9K, but at 150/300 its not the end of the world. I scoop a round of blinds and antes and have ~10K when i get a spot to double up.

My stack: ~10K, cut off (elblondie) ~25K. I am dealt JJ in the sb @ 200/400.

Preflop: folds to elblondie and he makes it 1050, btn folds and i 3bet to 3700. He dwell and flat calls.

Flop: 892r, i tank and then move in for 5200, which elblonde calls pretty fast with 9Ts. I think his preflop call is somewhat spewy there. His hand plays pretty poorly in this spot as im going to be jamming 100% of my range on every flop.

Shortly after this is get another chance to get it in:

My stack: ~22K, utg+1: ~18K, mp1 (elblondie): ~25K. I am dealt AcKc in the hijack @ 200/400

Preflop: utg+1 opens to 1050, elblondie flat call, i 3bet to 4800. utg+1 tanks before flatting, as does elblondie.

Flop: 8c 3d Ad, both check to me and i'm unsure of how much to bet, with ~15K in there and ~15K back, i fire in 7200, which is probably a mistake looking back on it. open shoving and maybe checking back are better. They both fold pretty quickly and i'm up to 33K.

I have a pretty active image at the table and a guy opens, and i look down at AA. I 3bet him and he comes straight in for a 4bet leaving not much behind, i just set him in and he calls with QQ. I hold and shoot up to about 65-70K. My high point of the day gets to ~90K, but i run TT into AA and spew a few when folding on the turn. I finish the day 3/33 with 82.9K.

I go back to the hotel and as i've drank at least 8 redbulls during the day i'm pretty wired, so read the updates and finally fall asleep pretty late. I wake up at about 8am and have a shower and get dressed, no idea why i did this as playing didnt start until 3pm and i'd had like 3 hours sleep. So i decided it's probs a good idea to go to sleep again, which i do until about 1pm before getting up and having a shower and getting dressed for the 2nd time. We roll over to dtd and meet claimer with a half hour or so to spare before the start of play.

I get off to a really bad start to the day spewing about 15K raising and cbetting to get c/r'd. I get moved to the right of Richard Hawes and 2 to the right of Tom Rutter who's game i'm unfamiliar with. I decide i cba getting involved with Rich as itl just end in some stupid 4bet jam by one of us.

I gather fairly quickly that Tom Rutter has a really solid game. I open in mp3 with A5s and he 3bets the btn, i wanted to jam but thought that would be super rash having just got to the table and i can't just assume as he's a about 21 that he'l be 3betting in position light. So i passed.
A few hands later i get a spot to get involved.

My stack: ~65K, mp1: ~50K. I hold AQo in the hijack @ 500/1000/100

Preflop: utg limps, as does mp1, i raise to 5200 and it folds back to mp1 who calls.

Flop: T86r, i he checks over to me and i fire 7200, he flats pretty quickly and i'm pretty much giving up on the hand here.

Turn: Qc (mbn etc) he checks over again, and i decide to check back and try get value on the river rather than turn, checking back helps induce some river action incase he was on some weird float on the flop.
River: 7, he thinks and shells out 9K, and i call him pretty fast. He tells me i must win and mucks when seeing my AQ. He claims he had a small pair, which is kindof a weird line as i feel a pair has some showdown value vs me in that spot so would be happier if he check called rather than turning the hand into a bluff.

This sends me back up to around 90K and im dealt another hand utg:

My stack: ~90K, cut off: ~60K, i am dealt TT utg @ 500/1000/100.

Preflop: I open to 2700 and he 3bets me to 11K. Here i go into the tank, i could tell he had been waiting to pull something as he was becoming increasingly frustrated with myself, Rich and Tom opening pretty frequently preflop. So in the end i decided to set him in, he calls, as you do with AA. And holds, so i'm back down to 30K. sigh.

Soon after this we get an hour dinner break and myself, middy, Tom and Claimer shoot off to nando's. We decide in true degenerate fashion we will order together and flip for the lot. Flip a coin each, odd one out loses. I manage to flip a tails to the others heads in the first toss. Claimer gets excited and being cheering and shouting ''weeeee sixty-two bones yo!'' (the bill came to £62). Claimer is full of banter at the table talking about him ready to hit the 300, ''its weird, i played the 500 like 100% concentrating, i dont usually do that, i'm just gonna get the drink flowing for this £300er and splash about you know'' cue weird hand motion to demontrate whipping chips into the pot and a tirade of laughter from Tom, Middy and me! Trigg is always hilarious on trips to tournaments and he once again delivered with this speech.

We mosey on back to DTD and get ready to crush, i have 48K @ 2Kbb so still enough play. I stack 13K off this off in hands i cannot remember, but i wasnt too active having Rich and Tom both to my left. When i find a semi-perfect spot to get a stack in.

My stack: ~35K, utg+2 (Tom Rutter): ~100K, btn: ~50K. I hold KQo in the bb.

Preflop: Tom opens for 5200 and has been pretty active, the btn flat calls and i jam from the bb. I think my stack size is pretty perfect here to move in, and KQ plays pretty well vs ranges of both players. Tom tanks and folds before the button goes into the tank. He tanked for a solid 3minutes, and i thought he probs had around 66-88. He eventually calls with JJ! And i lose the race.

So i'm gone in 14th for £0. ship. The £300 is still taking reg's and i'm semi tempted into doing so by trigg and middy. But then come to my senses and gtfo of there. After a few torns online in the hotel room and a decent sleep we'r in the car home. After a looooooong ride back i finally get out and am back in headingley.

So that £500 loss pops the downswing to $10.8K and back home to crush online to cut that down. Had some success immediatly by winning the tilt turbo fiddy for $4.8K on monday. Safe to say i ran pretty good obv. I managed to bank another 2 winning days on the bounce with a 3rd in one of the big doubles for $1300 and a few other decent scores on tilt. So i've managed to claw back $6.5K of the loses. Hopefully i can keep the form going right through to wcoop.

Speaking of wcoop, i'm toying with the idea of selling some shares in myself for both the $530NL and the $1050NL. Probably in a package deal combining both tournaments. I'll play the $215 and $320 6maxes on my own dime, but the higher buy-ins and insane fields will be variance inducing, so selling some shares off might be a good idea.

Blergh...

2008-08-20T04:26:00.007+01:00

Been running pretty bad of late, doesn't help much having spent a tonne of money with moving to the flat either! Been on a $7K downswing since that 50r win back in early July ($2K of that is live staking + % buying so only a $5K downswing for myself). $5500 of that has been losses in August online ($6.1K inc live poker) so i'd got off my downswing by the end of july but August has been a month of running below exp. Despite this i'm gonna take a smash at the dtd deepstack festival this weekend, guess i'll play the 500 and if i busto, the 300. Hopefully i'll run/play good live for once instead of tilting and running bad, not a good combo imo.

Not put too many sessions in for August. Gonna try crush sessions in for the last 2 weeks of the month to play through this terrible spell and get out.

Anyway f poker talk, onto the flat. Its not full on finished yet, i need to buy a 32inch tv for my room and a desk lol, wtf @ being an online poker player and not having a desk in their room yet. Been grinding on the dining table recently lol. The 42inch tv and ps3 in the lounge are crucial, even tho i constantly get my ass handed to me at call of duty 4 by jap's online. Sky still isnt sorted, but we have digital tv so we can get by. When we went and bought the tv we embarrassed ourselves coming out of tesco with £950 worth of stuff and upon arriving at my car we were like how the hell is this gonna fit! [ ] rich enjoyed the drive home, brents inspired shotgun call was major +liveEV as rich had to sit in the back on a folded down backseat with huge tv + tv stand boxes crushing him into the window. Then came getting the £950 of stuff up 3 flights, having a lift is a pretty big brag though.

Was thinking of getting some art/photo's up on the walls to give it a bit of something. If anyone has any decent sites when we can get some big travel posters of vegas/new york. Or any decent gambling art it would be appreciated.

Anyway, i'll post a dtd500 tourney report next week.

News...

2008-07-31T17:29:00.002+01:00

Went to spain for a week to our villa and got back 4 days ago. The golf courses are in such sick condition, its like playing off carpet, awesome stuff. Got my game kindof back while there, carded a 13 over 85 round La Finca by the last day. Prob gonna join @ Cookridge Hall next week when we're moved in and start playing competitively again.

First day back looked potentially sick. Finalled the ipoker 50r, party 20r and ipoker 25r 6mx. But 2 4th's in the smaller ones and a 9th in the 50r resulted in like $3K in cashes and a +$1500 day. Could have been much sicker but nevermind.

The next day was a nightmare but managed to get out with a $1300 cash in the tilt 15K and a $500 cash in the pty super 162 for like 10th or summit.

Day 3 was a huge slowroll day, i built stacks in tonnes of stuff but ran real bad deep and whifffed every torny except a default $150 cash for the ipoker 30r that got cancelled. Tilt hit the midnights-130's to get out, so made the days investment bigger and a -$1850 day. So we'r marginally down from returning from holiday.

This weekend sees the DTD£300 return, theres quite a crowd going down, Me and my faithful stable Horneris and ChipRich, 1time boys. Aswell as Hitthehole, Claretcougar and TheClaimer,[ ] gl to those guys. Prob lose £990 tho, hopefully we can a day 2 sweat.

Got a good story to show how much a degen fk Horneris is. I bank shipped him £330 so he could buy himself in online for the DTD300. 10 mins later he goes fk, i've just lost ur £330 on bfair. Hopefully he'l make it up by winning me some bags when he actually gets to the torn.

Hoping to run good online and in the DTDer so that i can hit the Luton GUKPT and a few sideys a week on saturday. As well as DTD's deepstack 2 weeks later with a £550 ME and £330 sidey.

And the big news, the flats finally sorted to go through and we'l be moved in on friday! Looking forward to shelling out a dime for a 42in tv and ps3 aswell as crucial other stuff to make it a sick pad.

Sendy...

2008-07-10T02:32:00.011+01:00

Hit my first 5fig score last thursday in the ipoker 50r. Had came 23rd in it the day before and took it down on the thursday.

It was pretty useful after a bad 3/4 day spell opening July and spewing about $2K over that time. Not many interesting spots from the tournament because it was such a crapshoot and CL was at 10x the whole time. Having QQ > AK+A3 with 11 left was useful so i entered the final 1/9. Didn't get up to much until about 5 left where i got it in with A3s > TJs. Then after that it was pretty plain sailing and i started moving chips about and got HU pretty much even in chips. 800K each @ 20/40K. He kept r/f the button which abled me to get him 4:1 in chips before AJd > AQo ftw.

So after winning that i told Rich i'd put him in the DTD£300 that w/e. Met Rich at the hotel at about 3:30 and just lay around in the hotel room til about 6. The got some food and hit DTD to start crushing. Starting with 10K and 45min levels the structures perfect. I managed to spin to 21K before the end of level 1:

Stack: ~11K, MP: ~8K, LP: ~10K. I hold Qc Qd in EP.

Preflop: I raise to 150, MP flats, LP 3bets 625. Me and MP both flat.

Flop: 5c 2s 2d, I check, MP bets 1500, LP calls;

here i was like, hmmm standard live guy spew line for LP is to flat AK/AQ here. But just to check he doesn't actually have AA or KK, I'll just flat it and re-eval turn. Also c/r the flop will v likely shove everything i beat out, and get everything that has me beat re-shoving.

Turn: 9h, I check, MP shoves 5800, LP folds. LP folding made the decision easy. So course I call waiting to see some moron hand like A5o lol. He tables 77. [ ] wp sir. LP says he folded 77 too, so i have to fade the 0 outer, which i manage. So sick if LP calls/rejams his 77.

So up to 20dimes @ 25/50 life is ok. Started raising a decent% of hands pre and shelling at flops and generally maintaining my stack.

The next hand of interest i can remember is @ 200/400/50:

My stack: ~25K, MP1: ~10K, MP2: ~15K. I hold 46o in the sb.

Preflop: MP1, MP2, Btn all limp, I make up sb, bb checks.

Flop: 4s As 6d, I check, MP1 bets 1,000, MP2 flats.

MP2 is really spewy so will probs stack off an A here so i c/r to 6,500. MP1 dwell folds and MP2 rejams with 82s. I turn another 6 and its gg sir.

So up to 40K @ 200/400/50, life is still good. Then we get into a huuuuge pot @ 300/600.

My stack: ~41K, C/O: ~38K. I hold AKo on the btn.

Preflop: c/o raises to 2,400, I 3bet to 10,050 and he thinks for under 5 seconds before shoving. 3bet folding would be a huge mistake here, and we're flipping a lot here so i pretty much snap the 38K off. He tables KK. The board rolls of a cruel x-x-x-A-K. loooooool, no need for tht. but w/e gglife a 80K pot ships to him.

Photo evidence of my run badders, [X] Bad River:

Left with 3K i get it in with T4c > QJc to double but then KK guy opens utg for 3,400 @ 400/800, I jam AKo for 7,100 and MP3 cold 4bt jams for 28K. utg dwells forever and folds AKo face up. MP3 shows QQ and holds vs me.

Not done much online, blew the crypto20K with 4 left the other day. Had it won but spewed and busted in 4th for $1.5K which broke me even for the day. Off to York Races on sat, so will probs spew loads lol, hopefully i can nip Brent for tips and ship it crucial. Gonna hit this sunday hard as its dble gtd's on stars! weeee. Hopefully i'm not too fked from saturday to grind well.

[ ] gg.

[ ] Live poker is fun...

2008-06-27T17:46:00.006+01:00

Oh my god, whoever invented live poker is a moron. Its like insta lifetilt.

Have some guy to my left when i sit down in the DTD £55 who wouldn't stfu putting ppl on sets, AA or KK every hand. Before sitting down I thought i'd see how long I could go without putting my ipod in. That lasted for under 1 hand.

The idiots who come play poker who think they know how to play then talk about the most twisted reasoning ever tilts me beyond belief.

Anyway, onto the tourney:

I lose about 700 raising preflop and whiffing and 600 in TT < AJo when my first spot to get some chips comes up:

My stack: 2,175, SB: 5,500 @ 100/200. I hold JJ on the button.

Preflop: folds to me, I raise to 600, SB calls, BB folds.

Flop: 8d Ad Jc. He asks what i have (1675) and sets me in. I snap he shows A9h.

''I knew you had that'' he says, orly? wp then.

Its not long til i'm involved again:

My stack: 4,400, UTG: 3,800 @ 100/200. I hold JJ on the button.

Preflop: UTG opens for 800, folds to me, I jam for 4,400. UTG calls.

UTG shows ATo. It rolls off QA8QA. Ship it.

So i'm down to 600 and get it in with KQc 4ways and lose.

The guy to my left was life tilting beyond belief. He came up with the most bizarre reasoning i've ever heard after limping utg with K5o, uber shortie shoves for 550 @ 100/200. I make it up in the bb with K6o (spew was limping pretty much every hand so the K6 is probs a call) and utg spew calls. We check it down as it bricks and shortie tables A7 to win.

He comes out with, ''thats your fault, i only called because i wanted to win all your chips''. (orly? playing the K5o for the huge implied odds it has vs a cold caller getting 3/1) At first i thought he was joking, then it became obv he wasn't. I lolled @ him for him telling me he would've folded the K5o to the shove, strong play sir, limp utg for 200, guy shoves for 550 it comes bk to you for 350 to win 1050 thts in there. Live players have rly stupid reasoning for stuff its ridiculous.

Its just not worth playing live poker, £wise anyway compared to online. We went down as its Trigg's bday week and Fran, Maria and Tighty we're off. It was comedy and Trigg was on form lool. Somehow he dragged himself to take 5th, he probs cnt remember it though.

Off to the DTD £300 in a week for that blonde thing, then i'm done with live poker for a while.

Leaving the flat...

2008-06-26T10:26:00.001+01:00

Will be moving out of our tez flat on monday, just enough time for one last brutal sunday session. Moody moved out about 2 months ago, so has just been me and rich, hes off on sunday morning, so it'l just be me left, and nothing to do but put in a mammoth session.

Have not really played this month, probs put in about 7-10 sessions so far. But had a few decent scores so still in profit about $3.6K. Had a $3.1K score for 2nd in the 30r on blonde last night and a ridic weird situation happened 3 handed:

My stack: ~200K, Btn: ~180K, SB: ~400K @ 8K/16K. I hold AKo in the BB.

Preflop: Btn raises to 48K, SB moves in, I call, Btn calls.

Btn: AA
SB: 66

Board: xxxx6.

So that 6 on the end busted us both, but i had Btn covered so I somehow come 2nd because of that 6 outer. So golden. Get it in dead but win $1.1K due to a 6 rolling off.

Want to try to get a few more sessions in before we go, but i'll probs only get in today and sunday as we have so much to do. Including cleaning, wtf is tht?

Gonna hit the DTD£300 on a freeroll on the 5th from tht blonde thing. Probs run bad though, live poker sucks.

Later.

Juuuuuuuune...

2008-06-07T05:11:00.000+01:00

My life has no structure atm, probably won't until october when im back at uni. Our flat contract expires at the end on June and as we don't move into the new place until August 1st i'll have to go back to Stutton for a month which means i'll probs have more normal sleeping hours.

First off, may ended like a dream with winning the $44 6max on stars for like $1.3K. Had been staking Rich to random tournies for a few days then started staking him exclusively to $11 and $4 180 seaters on stars. He worked off all his make up through them and made about $800 for us to chop. Then on the 31st i randomly offered to stake him into the $16.50 NL MSOP#2 when i saw it was like 15diiimes for the win. He managed to come 3rd for a further $7K for us to chop. Which was amazingly sick.

And after a small score in the $55 6max for like $900 or something May was over. My most successful month ever to the tune of just shy of +$25K.

Now to June, as my sleep patterns been amazingly messed up i've been grinding the 1am-6:30am starts on Stars and Tilt. Managed a score in the 17K on tilt the other night which was $4K ftw. I ran absolutely amazingly on the final its safe to say, and ended in me jamming 46d HU having him well covered, he snapped with 99 and it rolled off 235r which was a pretty good flop.

I'm supposed to be off to DTD later for the £330, but its 5:26am and i've been up since midnight. So looks doubtful, plus sledge has bailed so flying solo will be kind of a beat. Oh yeah and live poker sucks which is a further beat.

Probs gonna grind all the time in June and basically have a month off in July to see my neglected non-poker mates who will be back from uni.

hmmmmm just been mulling over what to do later, might go to bed @ like 12-6 then come down. But then i just saw they have a £200 1 dayer on sunday @ 5pm which is 7.5K and 30mins so might just go down for that. So much easier as its a 1 dayer. Probs will do that, try get Rich, Brent or Sledge to come with too.

Later wigga's.

Running like the sun...

2008-05-28T03:15:00.000+01:00

Been on fire over the past week or so finalling a bunch of stuff on ipoker, and most notably taking down the $33r on sunday (always a brag to do it on a sunday)

This, accompanied with the $30r win have turned my 8 wins into 10 for the blonde mtt challenge and i've somehow shipped that home! So the DTD £300 that i was off to next week will now be free, ship it.

Put in a pretty epic session today playing from 2-10:30 starts, then played all the 12-1.30's as i was'nt tired. Went pretty tez and i spewed about £1K during today and yest.

Have managed to play 3 of the 5 ecoops so far (2 i didnt play were PLO). Big ty to Middy (hitthehole) today for putting up 50% of my buy in as im too big a nit to pull up $800. He went on to go pretty deep in it, aswell as shipping a $10K wsop package and 5th in the stars 50r so he'l live with me spewing his $400. All 3 of them have gone very badly so far, but i have high hopes for 2mo's $215 6max, should be pretty sweet. Oneeeee time.

The BR is looking as healthy as its ever been atm (except when it was £1K bigger 2 days ago) so all content on that front, would be great to keep running super hot though.

In other news, my sweet ass monitor came through last wednesday, and had paid for itself a fair few times over on sunday, ship it holla etc.

Blonde Bash 6...

2008-05-13T07:00:00.000+01:00

Had been looking forward to this for ages and was eager to get down to notts early and start drinking. As usual we fail at being early and Brent is driving through from tad with Gib and Steele who take forever so me and Rich decide to bomb into Headingley and ship a subway. We just get bk to the flat before them and we'r ready to go, at the new start time of 5:30 rather than 3:00.

The drive is a breeze and i don't think we have any near collisions like we usually do. And after getting abuse for driving 50mph all the way through that 'av speed' zone (which you obv have to) we were in nottingham, Steele had shotgun and begin beeping the horn to every car which put me on ridic tilt especially after he did it to this dodgy looking guy at some traffic lights! Nowhere to run vs dodgy guy in nottingham = imminent shooting ldo. We somehow got to the holiday inn alive and saw Kev in front of the hotel, somehow every blondebash its always Kev we see first. We meet Mayhew in the lobby and check in.

We go up to don some ballin' shirts and i pwn Mayhews soul at high card, you're not playing with amateurs here son, i've not lost a flip for years. So a bevvy in the hotel bar with floppy, dunk and crew and we were off into town. Met claimer and fran at walkabout and about 25 mins later taxi#2 met up with us, gatso's crew stole our 2nd taxi so by the time we met Brent etc we were in the 2nd bar of the night. A tonne of beers and a banging rendition of Busted's 'what i go to school for' by myself, claimer and gib on the kareoke and we were on our way. I was pretty wasted by this point and remember going to 2 more bars, then hitting dtd. Managed 1 beer in dtd then was cut off after trying to order a glass or merlot with Nick Hicks.

Me and dunk begin betting on random shit and i own him relatively hard, but spew that back and then some in a £20 sit and go. Where gatso cripples me AJs < AQ then bust to Benjo the French Antonio Esfandiari A7 into QQ. Mayhew ships in a McD's from the DriveThru only place despite every1 saying we had no chance.

I get up at some ridic time like 9am as Mayhew and Gib are getting up to go to footy, i cdnt be arsed playing as usual but didnt mind being awake as SoccerAM was on followed by the Palace vs Bristol City game. Gib came back after numerous hours of me falling in and out of sleep still fucked from the night before and we get ready to hit dtd and win bb6.

I start on the cokes as im still hammered and defo cdnt even think about facing food. The tourney gets off after the announcements and awards etc. I've got JC to my left who i hadn't played with before but knew out of all the ppl it could have been, he wasn't the best to have there, sigh. Got off to a pretty quiet start but the table was gonna be pretty easy. Popped it in the c/o with 86c and lead at a 457r flop 4 ways but everyone turbo folded, JC claims to have soulread me and mucked 77.

I just keep playing small pots before finding AA and a 5.5K stack in the bb @ 150/300/25. Its folded to the button, delboy who pops it to 900. I think about flat calling but decide to just try get it in, i make it 2775 and he shoves for 3200ish. Obv i snap and he tables 55 which insta gets there. This was pretty huge to lose as we were at the stage where i could open it up and feast on passive players ante's but being knocked down to 2.3K was a huge beat and meant i had to grind ridic hard.

I pretty much maintain my stack shoving and getting it through and was just waiting til i got called. JC made that a reality when i shoved the button and he called the in the sb tabling A7c. I sweat mine and find 2 none accross's, oh great, needs to be AA or 23 or im dead. Boom, i peel the 23 over but a 2c in the window peels, i tell him not to worry as he has made a fd with one card. Another 2 on the flop seals it pretty hard tho. weeeeeee. Me and him could've both probs mowed this table except we could never get any chips together when needing to hold in a showdown.

I get up to like 10Kish after busting theduke and shipping his £50 bounty, it was a massive sweat though, never easy. I shoved in E-MP with KQo and he gambles with T9s. It comes a flush draw and a gutter and 2 live cards for him to hit on the end but a perfect bricks ships it hard and trumper came and sent the bounty over, ship the red note ldo.

At this point our 5man crew round our end of the table began to disperse. Delboy and JC bit the dust, JC ran bad again and was crippled JJ < AA. I get to double up with QQ into the sb re-steal with 9T and im up to 24K. We decided to chop the 26man last longer for £65 each and i busto 2 mins later shoving K6h into an ITB crew members AKo. Sick timing to chop it. Shippp.

After busting (had started drinking at this point, come to think of it, thats probs the point the poker went downhill) i went and got a dtd burger, as they are defo ftw. Then we proceeded to sit at the table in front of the bar for hours drinking and betting on pretty much anything. Brent decided he would take any bet on the US racing then started sweating when Rod Paradise had £4 on a 60/1 shot. Flushy and Gareth came over and then the sick shit really kicked in. Flushy started being a ridic degen laying £60 vs £50 cf's and eventually a couple of £300 cf's! He got stuck like £500 but managed to spin it all back up somehow, he runs good. Mayhew was trying to spin the fk out of whatever he could and went busto once, but bet his cigs vs flushys fiver to get back in the game. oiiiiii oiiiii.

Jen somehow took it down and i went to congratulate/tell her she must be more golden than god at the bar. As i came over i was offered a 'mini guinness' or some shit, a shot that looked like a guinness and an excited laxie and her husband we're telling me i had to do it. So after 2 of those i was fked again and looked over to the computers to see everyone starting another trademark 'Horneris' Penis' thread. I had a genius idea of every1 getting on a differant comp and making one at the same time. Needless to say well all got a 12 hour ban. Finally i got banned! ship!

We got back to the hotel late again and tried to order room service but the phone was busto, so we 3 way flipped for who goes down stair to order it. I lost, which was pretty devastating. I went down and ordered 3 chicken curry, rice and naan's which would be up in 20-25 mins apparently. Well, i'm still waiting for it mate! The next thing i know its 11am and im lay on top of my covers fully clothed still. Must've passed out waiting for it. I go back to bed til 1 and get ready to go pwn the HU tourn.

We somehow get a bye through round 1 so our £100 team buy in is worth £175 already, senddddd the free money. We get Jen and floppys team in the round of 8 and i crush floppys soul by flipping like a machine after getting down to a 800 < 4200 chip deficit. In round 2 its at 2-2 and all riding on Brent vs George2Loose and a flip ftw. Brent has KQc and Rupinder has A6. It comes out xxK and we go crazy, a 6 on the turn followed by another on the end crushes our final dreams. We chop 3rd place money with Sharpleas team as half of them are in the PLO still and its a bit harsh making them come grind the HU for just £56 lol.

We say our goodbyes and head to pizza hut where we fume as theres no large bases left so we cant have a cheesey bites pizza. So ridic brudel. We hit home at 9:30pm ish and i just lie in bed all night not going to sleep til like 4am. Degen sleeping pattern is back so hopefully i can grind like a ninja for a few weeks and carry the form on that i left with.

May >> April

2008-05-07T01:29:00.000+01:00

April ended a complete write off. Stuck -£2.85K online and £330 live (playing all of 1 tourney). It was looking up towards the end though, i won a small donkament for like $1.3K and playing less volume was defo helping.

This form has continued into May and how i'm running is sick different! Won 2 donkaments in 2 days.

Firstly the $25r 6max on ipoker for $3.3K on sunday for the 2nd time this year. Played pretty well in this and pretty much mowed the final after the big stack made a spaz call with KTo and doubled me up with my AK. I got HU with said opponent and lolowned him pretty easily.

Then I won the $20K on crypto the next day for $5.8K. Ran great from 20 til the final going from like 16K @ 800/1600 to 70K. Even though i went on lifetilt as i get dc'd on blonde while deepish in the $109 fo then them locking my account so it took me 15mins to get it sorted to carry on playing! I got to the final 2/10 but started getting 3bet shipped on and was soon bk in the pack with like 10bb's. I shoved in EP with 33 and got snapped by MP2's 99. But peeled a 3 ball of with ease. I then got to see a K6x flop with K6o and got dbled through by KQ. At this point i had like 200K vs 5 ppl with 70-100K each, i busted another guy with AQ > AK (i run good) and there was no looking back.

I had another potential great day today finalling the pty $10r and the tilt 20r. But came like 7th in both for about $650 in total. Then went pretty deep in the ipoker $55r but busted with AT <>

Looking forward to blondebash this weekend going down with Horneris, ChipRich, Steelio and TheGib. Probs get hammered and spend loads but itl be worth it.

Dropping down :(

2008-04-14T18:42:00.000+01:00

Been playing pretty high lately for such a bankroll nit, and been investing like $1.5K-$2K a day on torns.

I'd love to stay up there and kick it for a while, but im stuck ~$4K in April so far so i'm gonna drop down and grind hard for a while before moving back up.

Dropping down will involve a schedule of $10-$55's and $3-22r's rather than $22-$109's and $10-33r's. Its a bit of a sigh tht i could'nt get off to a sick start @ the higher stuff and i was only a flip or 2 away from a big score coming between 10-18th in the tilt 109 3 times in 4 attempts was a massive beat, especially the time i ran KK < AA for a sick pot with 11 left.

In other news, i shipped an iPod touch in, its absolutely crucial and will hopefully make live poker less tedious.

Edit: Will be on a hiatus from stars and tilt for a while and will be grinding everything on blonde, party and dtd. PS, brag: posted this edit on my iPod touch!

DTD £330...

2008-04-07T04:08:00.000+01:00

Was pretty excited to play this tourney, with 10K and 45 min levels inc every level under the sun + antes it was going to be a sick structure.

Too bad i suck and misplayed 2 hands pretty hard costing myself a tonne of chips i could've saved.

Got of to a decent start getting paid off by Ali Mallu with AQ > AJ on a AKxxx board. Was up to 13k by the end of level one, then get QQ utg and pop it to 300 @ 50/100, mp calls and the button makes it 1300, he was pretty terrible @ poker and i take a flop off, it comes out 7 high rainbow. I check and he fires 1300 again, i felt this was pretty weak, so took another card of to eval. The turn bricked and he made it 2500, i should obv just fold to this bet but like i said, i suck @ poker so i call. The river brings K and i check, he checks behind with AA wtf?

After that hand i was down to like 8K, but still a tonne of play. After the second break i grinded from 7800 to 8250, and call an utg raise to 800 and mp flat with 99 from the sb. It come 9c 8c 2h. I check, utg leads 1100 and mp makes it 3100. I think for about 30 seconds, shrud and ship my 7500 into the middle, utg folds and mp dwells before calling with QQ. I hold and i'm up to 20K. This is where PeteL really turns it up a notch and start raising and c-betting every hand, to which ppl are spewing off tonnes of chips to him. I just decide to stay out his way as he's awesome and can probs read my soul.

Then comes another spew hand for me, i pop it utg with AJo to 1075 @ 200/400, utg+1 flats as does PeteL in LP. It comes down JTx with 2 spades, i lead 2025 and utg+1 calls (hes just been moved here fwiw). The turn bring the Kc and i check as i'm not deep enough to fire again. He insta bets 3200. This confused me and i took a card off. The river bricked and i checked again (debated putting a blocker in) He thought then bet 5K. I had 13.5K back and i think he has to have a set or a busted flush draw (he 3bet a OR before with AJo so i think he 3bets AQ pre so tht was probs out the question). I doubt its a thin v-bet with a K and a set probs raises me on the flop with PeteL to act after him and JsTs on the board. I decided to look him up and he flips TT. wp Dave.

Now i'm down to 7500 and in the bb. MP limps (he had been every hand) Pete made it 1500 and the sb called it (as he did every hand) i'm ready to shove pretty light and hope MP didnt limp too strong. As Petes range is massive and sb is 99% passing. It made shoving pretty easy when i looked down @ AQc. MP folded and Pete dwelled before calling with a 9To, the sb folded and it was on there backs. I decided to lose despite it coming Jc 7c but a 9h sent me to the rail.

Thoroughly enjoyed the structure and the fields so soft, just a bitch tht i had Pete 3 to my left all day. And we didn't break the table til after i busto'd. I'll probs be back next month.

In online news at the end of March i scored a $4K cash for 3rd in the $50K which sent the month into the green for about $2K, wiiiiii etc. And last night i cashed for $1.5K in the 30r on iPoker, this aswell as $1.2K in cashes on thursday night (taking down the $10r 6max and coming 5th in the $5r for about $550 a piece) means April is only $500 in the red so far.

Being a laze...

2008-03-28T19:25:00.000Z

I'm back hardly playing solid sessions at the mo, about a day after the last post i took down the $33 $10K on stars for $2.8K which got me back to like $700 stuck for the month. Since then i've spewed another $800 in half sessions. So stuck like $1.5K with 3 days to go in March, hopefully will get another 2 massive sessions in on sunday and monday. 1time get in the green!

The DTD team event was absolutely comedy we set off at about 10:30 and got to notts in v good time it was all going well until the satnav bird told us to drive through a massive metal fence which was gonna be pretty tough. So we got Fran on the phone to direct us to her house! She pulled out some ballin' t-shirts she'd had done for team 'imo' and we got a taxi to dtd.

Probs wasnt the best idea to start necking pints @ 1pm and after a dtd burger we were off. I never got started in the tourney after spewing like 2K with AA in hand 5. There were 2 limpers for 50 and the sb completed, so i popped it to 250 total in the bb with AA. The utg limper flatted and we were head up to the QTX flop. I lead 300 which he snap minraised to 600, i took a card off which came another T. I checked, and he checked behind. At this point hes usually got a QJ or some other livedonk hand. The river bricked and i v-betted 1K, which he dwell called with JT, wtf? So yeah tht was me down to 975 and push/folding for the rest. Eventually the same guy limped utg on my bb again and i shoved with A8o, he called with AJo, sigh. I busted in level 3 but was the 3rd person in the team to bust, so it was looking great. Maria busted a while later and it was all down to Fran. We were all sat behind here having some banter and when she got it in with AT vs 99 we wer all stood up. A ten peeled in the window and chants of ''yesssss, thts how we roll'' were echoing round the room but a 9 ball followed it quickly. kill us plz.

I played the £55 fo a while later and was pretty tired by this point and after spinning to 13K by the break with KK>KK (apologies for being that golden). I got moved to sledge and dan's table which proved to be comedy and i valuetowned some guy with my KJ on a JJXKX board vs his AK. Then i played a pretty weird hand. I popped it with KJ utg+2 to 1650 (300/600/50) and the new guy called with a big stack. The flop came KTX with 2 spades, i lead for 2200 which he flatted. The turn came another brick bringing a second club on board, i think for a while and am pretty sure he has some sort of combo spade/straight draw, so i just move in for like 10K. He absolutely snapped it i was like fk my life why do i always do this when ppl flat me in pos with sets. Turns out he had Tc6c for a pair and a fd. Some how the river bricked and i was up to like 30k. After this i just kept popping it and getting 3bet shoved a lot. And eventually busted 14th after 3bet shoving a terrible player with ATo, he had AJ. sigh.

Should be successfully switching uni courses this week so il be free til october, ship it massively. The course im currently on has a placement year for its 2nd year which would be such a beat i cnt face doing it. And the new course will finish @ the same time i would do anyway.

Sickest sunday ever...

2008-03-17T09:34:00.000Z

This weeks blonde sunday thread was probs the most depressing of all time. I think we were all bringing each other down, not even the golden one (moorman1) could get anything going.

I played 5 majors; Stars million and warm up, Tilt brawl, Party 300K and Blonde 200K. I ran ok in the brawl and warm up for a while but busted my stack off in these 2 hands in the warm up:

sb shove #1
sb shove #2

I tilted off pretty hard in the brawl when i popped it in the cut off with A6h and the sb 3bet shoved and i snap tilt called it, his AKs held ldo, i was then down to like 3k @ 250/500 and found AA utg+1 and shoved then held vs AQ. Back to 6800 and 3bet shoved over a lp 1250 open and a flat caller with ATo, the OR re-shoved with KQo and i somehow held so i got back in it with 15K. I got 3bet shoved on a few times and was back to 10K and shoved over a serial limper @ 500/1000 with QJd, he called with 56c and won.

I played about $2K worth of donkaments and cashed for about $100 lol, luckily i had satted into all 5 of the majors i played, so it was only a -$1K day. Next time i go for it on a sunday im certainly cutting out a tonne of small donkaments, no good can come from playing tht amount of volume, i cdnt concentrate at all with like 15 tables on the go.

Got a shed load of live stuff coming up:

DTD team event on sat 22nd and will play the £55 later that night.
DTD £300 on April 5/6th with sledge, hotel booked etc. 1time live poker.
bB6 @ DTD on May 10th
APAT Ireland in June

Dropping back to $55fo's and $25r's for the remainder of March to see if i can get out of my $3K hole!

loldonkaments

Feb round up...

2008-02-29T23:26:00.000Z

I'm so fkin lazy now. I'm pretty sure its all due to that retarded prop bet. Ever since then i've put in maybe 1 decent session. I had been putting in half sessions and just playing ftp and stars. Had a bit of success in the 15K on ftp coming 2nd for $2.3K, but lost to the worlds worst player HU.

In my one full session i managed to final the 20K $30r on iPoker, it was crapshootish as usual and i decided it would be good to run like death, i ran QQ into AKs and JJ and lost a monster 320K pot with 7 left to go 1/5, the board ran out 6789T so i was left with half of the 140K side pot. Down to 70K with blinds at 5/10K. I shoved the next hand with A2s > QJo and was back to 140Kish. I then proceed to get into another massive pot with the JJ guy from before with AQ vs AJ and it fired out XXXXJ, LOL donkaments imo. So i busted 5th for $1K, sigh 1st for $5.4K would've been ok.

Despite being a lazy unfocused month feb still brought £3,128.58 profit. £510 of that was live poker wins, which is now in the green for 2008.

Planning a weekend trip to dtd for the £300er in April as sledge won the blonde league and shipped the seat. Hopefully itl be a fail safe way to blow £440 + hotel/petrol costs, ship it.

So, March is on its way and im going to get back playing a tonne, even though i got lolowned in March last year and this year is following a similar pattern!

Its official, I am a sick degen

2008-02-19T06:46:00.000Z

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=31293.0

Just over 26 hours, of which mainly consisted of 10-18 tabling $4/$12/$22 180's with no breaks. It was sick to say the least.

I woke up at 4am to get ready for the 5am start. Showered, made sandwiches and checked the drink was stocked with enough lucozades, redbulls and bottled water to see me through. Come 5am i reg'd for every 180 going and was soon 10 tabling. From here i tried to consistently 18 table throughout the day. And during i just chilled listening to music and trying my best to lifetilt Rich and Brent into making mistakes. It worked pretty well on Rich who was fuming and refused to speak for about 3 hours.

The results were pretty bad, which should've probably been expected playing so many tables. 6-8 tabling then i believe i could be pretty profitable. I got through 307 tournies in the period, cashing in 41. Winning 2 of those 41. Overall i lost $385 LOL. But shipped the $400 sidebet monies so totalled out with a +$15 day! Any sunday in the green is ok in my book!

The final leaderboard looked like this:

1. LeKnave - 5134.40

2. Horneris - 5047.55

3. ChipRich - 3627.95

The bet probs saved me $1K (sunday donkaments ldo), but may have taken a few weeks off the back end of my life.

Really cba to play online atm after tht day. Slept for 12 hours after it, so probs go for another few now and maybe il be back to the grindstone.

The DTD trip was good even tho i was ridic hungover from James' bday partying in blue cayote til 5am. Managed to fall asleep and throw up directly on my laptop in my sleep, which then busto'd and i shipped a new 1 lol. I wasn't even gonna go to dtd after the way i felt waking up, then Brent came over and somehow got me to come. Was probs a good thing as i came 4th for £470. Not really much to tell about the tourney, i doubled pretty early with 99 > AA on a QQ9 flop and then went rly dead and was just picking spots to get by. Finally one of my sqeezes got called and i was 73d > A9o to get to 10K, then i got an absolute gift from some douche who stacked off with Q9 on a K5Q5X board to my KK. Made the final around 2nd/3rd in chips and just popped it as much as i could while staying away from a solid lag guy from leeds. I was pretty sure i could have took it down if i ran good vs him, the other ppl were pretty weak passive. But i got crippled in a cooler 4 handed where i reshoved the button with QQ and the bb found KK and the button snapped with AQd. Clearly i didn't hit the 1 out ball and was down to nothing and ran A4 into 55 and busted. As is usually raved about the quality of the staff running the tourney was 2nd to none.

Prop bet time...

2008-02-13T00:11:00.000Z

A new prop bet has been planned for this sunday, i will reveal all later in the post.

Had a pretty sick day on friday but no wins :-( 2nd in the $5K on party for $1.1K, 3rd in the DTD $13K for $1.3K and 3rd in the LOL stars $3r for $2.8K. The scores helped to turn around the -£1K into a +£2.7K, but over the weekend i ran/did pretty bad with no real cashes of note, and have spewed back about £1K of it. So Feb online profit is sat at +£1.7K.

I went to moortown last tuesday after being out drinking from 1-7 so that was pretty fun, after getting into a massive argument about whether i had to table my hand after being shown the winner, challenging 3 ppl hu4rollz and generally lolling @ how bad live donks are; i took it down for £240, not bad for an afternoon on the ale, and it swung my 2008 live profit into the green.

Off to DTD again on thurs with Horneris, ChipRich and king degen Oli will be meeting us there should be ballin' as per. See if we can run good this time.

On to the prop bet then:

Ingredients: 3 degens, 3 laptops, 3 extra monitors, 72 cans of redbull, 48 bottles of water, 48 bottles of lucozade and a takeaway menu.

Method: Attain as many TLB points from stars 180 man sng's ($4's, $12's and $22's) in 24 hours as possible.

Stakes: $200 each, $600 ftw.

Additional Items: An attitude ready to gogogo.

I went for a test run tonight to prepare myself for 20+ tabling again as i havn't done that for donks. And it was pretty tough, hit every $4, $12 and $22 180 from 4pm til 6pm. Got 29 in and hit 4 finals netting $470 profit LOL shibit. I was pretty comfortable 20 tabling, i need to make sure not to have msn open or browse blonde + 2p2 LOL. I think i have an edge in the bet, but the winner will just be whoever runs best. And as Horneris and ChipRich run perma-bad i fancy myself. We will make a thread on blonde throughout the 24 hours, which runs 5am on Sun til 5am on mon, so check in there to see how its going.

Lesson #1 imo...

2008-02-03T21:04:00.000Z

dnt brag about winning it puts the doomswitch on.

stuck £1K in feb so far. sigh.

January round up...

2008-02-01T00:07:00.000Z

January 2008 has been my most successful month of all time. I managed to donk my way to winning £9,108.01. The sickest part is the fact that i only made £8K in the whole of 2007! £9.2K was online and i lost £150 live. I only managed to get 3 live tourns in though.

I ended Jan this morning by taking down the $55 speed crapshoot on pty for $1.6K. Sick that it had 119 runners and the blonde mtt board is 120+ torns.

I put $600 on fulltilt a few days ago, and never got going and busto'd it within 2 sessions. The structures are soooo good on there compared to other sites. I will probs put some more on in a week to play the FTOPS as theres a few events i want to play.

Gonna kept grinding party, stars, dtd and blonde for february and will see how i run.

Closing one out...

2008-01-25T05:45:00.000Z

The day after that last post i managed to win a tournament! It felt fkin awesome and proved that adding the $100 fo's to my schedule was a good idea. I ran good on the final going in 10/10 with 6bb's but only 1 suck out after i shoved over a 4K limper for 32K with KTc and the bb found AK and i flopped a 10. I've made £5.7K in January online, and lost £149.50 live, but only played 3 torns, lol donkaments.

In other news, I went down to the £55 FO at DTD with Horneris, ChipRich and Sledge. The place really is the shit. Excellent running of the tournament, the valets are great and service is very fast. The whole place just has a great atmosphere. I hope to make the trip at least once every fortnight and i'd encourage any one to go. It was easy to get there and back with the sat-nav. Even Horner had the boomswitch working in the internet terminals. Shipping a final in the $2K and getting deep in the 6max!

Winning without winning...

2008-01-22T07:47:00.000Z

Doing amazingly well in January, currently sat at +£3200 for 2008.

Have only won about 3 donkaments outright. Today was another day of nearlys, i finalled the $20r on party early on and donked out in 4th with K9h < KQ on a KJX flop, this was good for $1300. Then had a final and a bunch of minor cashes on iPoker. Followed by coming 2nd in the $5K on dtd for $950. Finally i cashed for $1100 in the $55 6-max on stars. Ran bad at crucial times on the final, Ac6c < A4o all in on a AsKc9c flop, so fkin brutal the following hand i ran good with 66 > J7 all in on a 773 flop. Before running KK < A8 aipf. These scores accompanied by 2 $750+ cashes on sunday made for a good weekend.

Even though i am making decent scores, it is still very frustrating. Everybody knows all the money is on the first place in a donkament. And i can't help but feel i am losing money every time i fail to take one down. Hopefully i can keep putting myself in spots to take one down and it'l come. The variance is sick once down to 5 or so players though. Today 1st in the $20r and $55 6max were $5K and $2.7K respectively, but i only walked away with $1.3K and $1.1K in each. But i'll take being unhappy in this case than being unhappy at a major downswong any day!

Off to DTD on thursday, can't wait! Should be a good laugh with the team of wankers, Sledge, Horneris and ChipRich.

gl at the tables.

Dave.

January Joy...

2008-01-06T09:29:00.000Z

Running sick good in the opening few days of Jan, and have already made just shy of £2K in 2008.

I have won 2 donkaments already, a small $20 $2K gtd for $650 on DTD and a bigger $55 $6K gtd on iPoker for $2.5K. This accompanied by 2 2nds in Party $10 rbys for $750 each as well as a handful of other finals.

In the $6K that i took down, i ran amazing HU winning 2 flips and then A9 > KK to finish him off. But it was a different story HU in the $10 rby: where i lost a huge pot with 99 < A3 and finally A8c < A2o. But on the bright side, i ran good HU in the tourn which we were playing for $1K, and bad in the one playing for $400. I didnt really care about the money, just wanted win number 2 for the blonde leaderboard, so fkin sick.

I'm still playing $55 max buy in's. I am considering starting to play some $109's as i am well rolled enough to do so, i'll probably play 1 a night for a few days, either the $12.5K $109 on iPoker, the $20K on Party or the $20K on DTD. And if they go poorly i'll consider leaving them out for a while. But i think the only way to get the stage of regularly playing the biggest online donkaments is to do it step by step, and the next step for me is $109 FO's so lets gogogo.

I've got of to a losing start on the live front. Venturing down to moortown for the £25 w/1rby and busto'ing 20th. Had a small return on a % swap with gibbo who came 4th, but a loss of £44.50 to start the year. The new schedule includes a £25 w/1rby on both fridays and sundays so i'm going to make an effort to get down once a week and qualify for the freeroll in March which will have a £4K prizepool. 1 time 50 points, should be easy to do as fri+sun are triple points nights.

My sleeping pattern is so fked atm, i'm sat here at 9:30 on sunday morning and been up since 6pm last night. I need to try go to bed to be up for some standard sunday shot taking later.

g'night.

2007 Roundup...

2007-12-29T05:56:00.001Z

12 months playing a decent amount netted me an £8,070.22 profit. My target at the beginning of the year was to make £12K. But after a more relaxed second half of the year i am happy with my total.

Online:

For the past 12 months i have had 9 winning months and 3 losing. Varying from +£3,202.38 to £1,567.70. Online poker has really made me want to die at times this year, but im back in love with it after finding iPoker's mtt's.

Individual Sites Profit Breakdown:

DTD +£3,416.09
BPL +$2071.85
Party +$1567.55
Stars +$1100.00
BlueSQ +£400
Mansion +£366.29
Mermaid -£14.63
FTP -$2069.08

Total Online Profit : £5,518.44

Live:

I played 54 live tournaments in 2007. Cashing 16 times, I won 4 of them outright and chopped one. Making £2,528.56 from live donkaments.

I didn't get into much live cash game action in 2007. I sat 10 sessions winning 4 times, losing 6. Overall turning a profit of £2.00. I think exploiting cash at Moortown in 2008 needs to be done, but i usually tilt if playing after busting from a tournament, so maybe going down at 10:30ish and playing cash only.

I played 5 sng's live, winning £21.22. These are mainly from bb's and apat and usually just for comedy value.

Total Live Profit : £2,551.78

Goals for 2008:

Make £15,000 profit
Play at least 1 GUKPT leg
Play 2 WCOOP Events
Secure a job in a poker room for my placement year

Happy new year everyone, lets fucking goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. imo.

Actually an ok day...

2007-12-29T05:50:00.000Z

Zomg, 4 final tables in one day. 2nd, 2nd, 3rd and 6th though, so brudel.

Started at like 5ish as Horneris was grinding and hit most torns on iPoker, DTD and Party. Went deep in the $10r with Horner, ended up busting in 6th for $250.

Then the 2nd lot of tourns around 11/12pm kicked off and i built stacks pretty deep in the $6K double stack and the $4.5K on iPoker, as well as the 2nd $10r on party. I finalled in all 3 of these, coming 3rd in the $6K for $950ish, 2nd in the $4.5K for $850ish and 2nd in the Party $10r for $750.

Ended up winning £1,100 for the day. And the BR looks a lot healthier going into 2008.

I will post on the 31st with my years round up.

Back playing...

2007-12-03T19:42:00.000Z

Having got my essays out of the way i have had a few days to grind some tourns again.

I cashed $500 off stars and put £250 on DTD to play all the tourns throughout the day. Have won 2 mtt's since moving there. But only small ones for $750 and £200.

Had a potentially big sunday by qualifying for 3 of the biggies: Mansion 150K, DTD £40K and Tilt $750K. Ran bad in all 3 (mansion KK < AA. DTD AQ < KK and Tilt AA < 85c on a 889r flop)

November finished in the green, shiiiiiip. LOL +£94. Came 4th in the £55 at moortown on the last day of Nov to swing it into the green. Decided to run QQ into KK 4 handed for a decent pot but bricked the turn and river after a hopeful 9TJ flop. At least it ended the worst spell i've had in live poker, 11 tournaments without turning a profit!

Gonna keep grinding DTD and Tilt mtt's for as long as i can, but i think i might have to do some more work soon so it may have to take a backseat.

APAT Walsall, Winning a Donkament and Plans

2007-11-16T02:50:00.000Z

APAT was a pretty hard failure. Beginning with the drive down, stuck in a traffic jam for 2 hours on the M5. But listening to the audio recording of Barry Greensteins 'Ace on the River' took the edge off.

After finally arriving at the end of level 1, i started to accumulate a few chips and was always gradually increasing them by every break. At the end of level 10, a pretty sick hand happened between myself and M3boy, and a massive thread on blonde was started about it, here.

Anyway i won that pot, then knocked off a shortie and was in good shape with around 35 left. Then i kept getting moved and sat down at a new table utg and folded, then in the big blind was dealt AJo. The cut off popped it up to 12K (he had a big stack and i could only guess his range was amazingly wide in that spot) so i moved in for like 33K more. He made the call with 44 and i lost the race. 29th place was good for £0. Can't be to unhappy to busto in that spot tho. 100K pot near enough.

The other night Horneris decided he couldn't play the $22 deepstack 6-max on stars any more as he had work in the morning and it was like 4am. So i took over for 20% thinking it nicely bubble it for him. But obv as im only playing for 20% i run good and pwn the whole thing taking down $1.7K total. Of which only $350 was mine. ffs stars let me run good when its all for me ldo. But at least it gave me the feeling of closing out a donkament again. Since that i don't think i've played a hand online. I had an exam for uni last monday, which went pretty well. Then as a reward for my hard work i was looking forward to grinding some torns so hard. But of course the internet decided it won't bother working any more, and the router blew out. ffs stars.

So hopefully that will be fixed soon. But poker will still be on the backseat as i have 2 essays to do, and 2 mates 21st's to celebrate. Involving trips to Newcastle and Liverpool. Thankfully the Newcastle trip (being Horneris's) will involve the £30 FO on saturday night at Aspers. Lets gogogo.

Busto in a month?

2007-11-02T20:40:00.000Z

Sigh. Another month living in the flat, and another terrible month. I dropped £780 online, and another £160 live. So donking £1950 in August and September is not the greatest start, especially with the added living expenses i've taken on since moving in.

So as my rolls been pretty destroyed im back to grinding again. Playing tourneys from 6-1 every day was really hurting the roll. So its back to the grind. 10 tabling $16 sng's for November. Maybe not the whole of Nov but at least for a few weeks to build some scratch and hit the tourny's again.

Its sad as i really felt i was on the verge of a big win, been very close to some $4K-$10K wins but just that final hurdle goes wrong and i end up crashing out for $100-$900. So the big win will have to be put on hold.

Its not going to be easy and i'm probably going to nut a fair few objects throughout the mind numbing sng grind. But it'l all be worth it if i can build the roll back and be back smashing the mtt's.

As well as dropping the £1K in October it was probs one of the more expensive months with trips to Dublin and Cardiff throw in there. Making it hurt the finances even more!

Another trip is coming up tomorrow. With the English leg of the APAT Season 2 Tour. £75 FO with 10K and 40 mins clock with all the levels. Hopefully a score will be had. Me, ChipRich and Linux are going down. Should be a good laugh.

Blonde Bash 5 - Cardiff

2007-10-16T07:45:00.000+01:00

I was too lazy to write a trip report for this one, but left it in the capable hands of ChipRich to do it some justice.

Click Here to read it.

The weekend was total comedy from start to finish.

Bring on bB6 in Nottingham!

International Poker Open - Dublin Trip Report...

2007-10-08T12:49:00.000+01:00

Day 1 : Friday

I got back from uni at 5:15pm, and am very excited about the upcoming trip. I open the door to the flat and see Rich passed out in bed still, lazy bastard. JP and Sledge are in Headingley having a few sherberts and i was going to go meet them before being put on uber life-tilt via the bus service from Leeds to Headingley. 30 mins to wait for a bus that is supposed to come every 3 mins.

Sledge and JP turned up at the flat about 6 and we ground out some games of fifa before Horneris arrived, then the game switched to ProEvo, Sledge declared he would play anyone for any amount, Horner beat him 5-1 and Rich owned him 4-1. LMAO. By 8:20 the taxi still hadn't arrived, then we got a phone call saying it was outside and shipped the bags out to begin the trip. And everyone was praying to run good in Airport props one time.

We arrived at the airport and joined the massive queue to check in. Horneris had been saying how poor it was that we were checking bags in and would be able to avoid waiting around spotting his bag on the carousel in dublin. So we checked them in, got through to the x-ray machines, Horneris put his bag through and they find loads of liquids/hair product etc! So he has to go right back to check in with his bag. Huge beat imo.

Anyway, throught to departures and the prop bets begin, £1-£10 omaha/hold'em/high card flips. I managed to run super hot and make £20 in 20 mins. Rich's face here shows how he ran:

We see a lolly machine, and remebering how +EV I am in betting which colour will pop out vs James. So we have £4 on it, and a Pink one flies out, ship. Sadly the plane begins to board shortly after so there isn't time for much more, me and JP have a bet on what time the wheels will touch down in dublin, i take odd minutes, him even. After a double shot of rum and some pineapple flips we began to decend into dublin. The plane touched down on an odd minute, (i pwn props so hard) and we made our way into the terminal, where i have £4 with brent on who's bag will come through first, and £1 with JP on the same thing. JP's owns it and i lose £1 to him, but of course mine pwns Horner's so ship the +£3 profit, (he thought he had an edge as his bag was checked in last, what a douche).

On exiting the airport we see the worlds biggest taxi queue but join it for the fuck of it as the only other option was a bus. LOL buses. But it shot down fast and we were at the Jacobs in no time. We got the keys and lobbed the stuff in the room. JP and Horneris went to the Fitz to change some money, and try go on Shaun '[censored]' Deeb BJ spin ups. While we attempted to sleep. Which failed and they came back in around 3 with no winnings. We then got to sleep and awoke when a 'roomate' came into the room, we had booked 5 beds in a 6-bed room and were sharing with some random polish guy...

Day 2 : Saturday

I woke up to JP: ''Well, Brent has no head'', Sledge: ''wtf?'' *looks down to Brents bed*. This comment spurred from the various jokes about the ''Hostel'' films and the fact we were sharing a room with an eastern european. In truth, Brents head was still there. And we were reading to play some poker. After stocking up on a cooked breakfast, red bulls, lucozades, water and chewing gum from spar, i was ready.

We arrived at the RDS and i was amazed by the sight, 108 poker tables inside this massive hall, i went over to the huge screen to see ''David Jones - T107-8''. We sat down at a random table to wait and met Rookie and Aisling. And before long it was time to grind.

I moved to my table and as i run bad it was one of the self-dealt ones, but a french guy had offered to deal so it didn't really affect me. Apparently some of the tables didnt even play a hand in the first level as no one would deal! I got off to a shitty start in the tournament after getting deep in a pot with 78s and a 8JQ8 board before another Q fell on the river to fill up his AQo. So down to 6K, then up to 12 and finished the first break on 9.7K. I was v tired and playing pretty bad but kept chugging red bulls and lucozade to keep me concentrating. When i got back i started spinning up to around 18K but dropped back to 10.7K by break 2, with TT and AKh losing. After another bad start to the 3rd session i was back a 6K before checking down JJ until the river on a J9X9X board and over-betting the river and getting paid by 77. I got a table change to the v good table and i was looking forward to going robusto. I got to 23K v quickly but blinded back to 18K by break 4. On return from break 4 i found QQ and 16.3K in my stack. UTG popped it to 3.5K, the hijack then smooth called and i just moved in for 16.3K. UTG folded pretty fast, and the hijack not so fast. He was about to muck his hand, then put it back down and called it off with Jc9c. He got there with a J94XX board. And that was that. 9 hours of poker, which i thoroughly enjoyed. Horneris was still alive when i left with a huge stack. he still had 5 hours ahead of him if he was to make day 2 and the money.

We got a taxi to the pub on the corner near the Fitz and sunk a few bev's after sledge busto'd (he flips bad). And waited on news of our hero. He was doing very well and increasing his stack at every text msg. We moved to the Fitz and Sledge ground some €1/2 PLHE. And flopped the nuts while winking and giving us the thumbs up in full view of his opponent, who still paid him off! We got back to the hostel and met Brent in the doorway. He had made day 2 with 130K. One time. €32K for 1st and my 15% looked v.good.

Day 3 - Sunday

I was looking forward to playing some more poker today. And woke around 12ish after a heavenly sleep, i looked around and saw Sledge and JP were gone, turned out they had gone to the Fitz at 9am even thought it is blatent that no-one would be there. Brent headed off to the Jackpot for day2, and me and Rich went to a supermarket for some breakfast. We got a taxi to the fitz and saw no-one was there so started to walk towards some bars that Sledge and JP may be in. We found them very soon walking down the road and went into a pub for a bevvy. Before returning to the Fitz and meeting TheClaimer, Dewi, Booder and their mate who's name i didnt catch. Dewi claimed there were 20 runners in the €30 F/O Booder then called him a ''thick prick'' as there was 120 runners, with 4K stack and 20 minute clock it was going to be a quick one. I was pretty sure i was going to win it with 45 left but i ran bad with 88 vs Q3o and AJh vs TT and i was gone. Nevermind. Brents gonna win with €4500. But turns out he busted early and was infact in the €30 torny but downstairs. So i went to the pub for a few and decided to miss the €40rby. Brent will give you a full tourney report on his blog. We ended up staying for a few, getting a burger king and going to the Fitz for the degenerates to try one more sick spin up before heading back to the hostel and setting the alarms for 7:15, urgh.

Day 4 : Monday

Early rise and departure to the airport. Me and Rich got a taxi and the other 3 got in another. Rich runs so terribly that after we were dropped off he realises that he left his wallet in the taxi!

After a ridiculous amount of jokes about this, we begin to worry that he may go over the edge and try hijack the plane or something. I manage to win £19 flipping with james on the plane and after a short taxi ride from the airport. We were home again.

Prop bets = +£53

IPO = -£105

Fitz Torn = -£20

Hotel = -£40

Flights = -£45

Rich's face after realising hes lost his wallet = PRICELESS

Another unforgetable trip and i can't wait for the next one. Just too bad we couldn't have a sick result.

World Blogger Championship of Online Poker

2007-10-08T12:27:00.000+01:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 1469314

One time.

Oh noes, i win some monies back?

2007-09-28T15:29:00.000+01:00

Staged some sort of comeback to salvage the month a bit. I was at -£2100 at 1 sick point in the month. But taking down a $11 6-max torny on stars for $1.9K helped the cause, and currently i'm -£993.61 online for Sept.

I've played a whole 2 live tornys so far this month, firstly my unsuccessful shot at the gala £110. The last night played the £15 w/rby at moortown, just went down to buy in for the £55 the following night really, but ended up winning it for £280.

So, -£906.01 down for september total, not the worst month ever anymore. Theres still a small chance i can end it in profit. Tonight is the £55 at moortown which winning will probs be £1K+. Then hopefully i can run good online on sunday.

In other news, have just finished my induction week at uni, and it's sweet. It's been weird getting up and getting the bus down etc, but probs good to get some structure back to my life. From now on the course is mainly 3pm starts, so can still try pwn late night donkaments.

Should have some more interesting post's coming up soon with trips to:

Dublin - €100K Gtd
Cardiff - Blondebash 5
Nottingham - DTD

Dublin and Cardiff are in the first 2 weeks of October, and all being well a DTD trip should be in November sometime.

Until then, im out yo.

Fame at last...

2007-09-14T21:36:00.000+01:00

Finally found the APAT Ireland Interview i did. Thanks to APAT for putting it online :D

Its around 5:30 into this:

In other news, i have won a seat in WCOOP#5 $530 NLHE on sunday. See what happens.

LOL Good start to September...

2007-09-07T01:50:00.000+01:00

No no, Lost in the first 7 days of the month, not the best start. It wasn't so much the first 6 days (-£250) but the 7th day. I was in full rage tilt and donked off about $800 @ $5/10 on ftp, and $150ish on Party in tornys and $5/10.

So now im in that twighlight zone of realising what you've done etc. And am going to sort it out, the first major change i've made is, putting my ''poker bankroll'' in a separate bank account. I have £2500 spread online + in the poker roll. Then all my other funds will be for living costs @ the flat etc.

So, $5000 to try and grow into a REAL sum. I wont be withdrawing from this roll, as i have enough to pay for everything for a while. And i will be playing:

$11-$55 FO's
$5-$22 Rebuys
$3r-$58FO Satelites (WCOOP/300K/Million/750K)
$1/2 NLHE

I will have a daily schedule to play for most days, and will post it soon. Torns spread across Party, DTD and FullTilt. Then Stars for Sats/Million/Maybe morning torns.

Making separate balances should have been done a long time ago. But now its done and i hope i can spin it up.

I am probably going to go to Gala's £100 FO tomorrow night. To take a last shot before grinding hard. Havn't been there in ages, so hope to run super hot. plz kthx.

On a non-poker subject. Golf today with Sledge, Sniper and Horneris was absolutely comedy i was back hitting the ball well, and 2 birdies and a load of pars was nice to return to. Hopefully i can get back playing regularly again.

YoYo

2007-08-17T10:21:00.000+01:00

What a weird 2 weeks in online world:
1. Get off to a steady start = +£150
2. Grind grind grind = +£600
3. Ridic shots part 1 = +£350
4. Ridic shots part 2 = -£450
5. Grind grind grind = -£300
6. 2 2nds in a night = +£250

So, been yoyo'ing about a bit but am back on the right side of the line. And going to continue on my current diet of the $10-$55's and $5-$10r's. Seems to be doing the trick in the form of 3 2nds in mtts in the past 2 days. Beat: Losing all 3 HU. In fact, i've got HU in 5 mtt's on party since having the LeKnave_SISM account, and lost every single 1. So sick. Maybe il have to adapt, or maybe i'm just running bad once there. But cashing for $2K in those 3 torns helped out.

Flat news - Still not moved in, im such a laze and cant be actually arsed to sort my stuff here, and theres no need to as i have the whole place to myself while family are still away. Finally got onto BT and broadband should be ready to go by next friday. So thats the new date. Either then or thurs. Or maybe monday if i can be arsed to have some live grinding going on every night. I thinks i'd still be too bored though, so probs be thurs/fri.

Here is my interpretation of week 1 of living there:

Rich and James will be fighting non-stop i guess. And il be kicking back on the sofa.

hollaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Norrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, I'm pretty sick and very stupid.

2007-08-13T02:21:00.000+01:00

Despite last post, i couldn't resist another shot at the glory of the sunday majors.

Played basically every torny on party investing about $550, and getting back about $50, then on fulltilt i spent around $500 (including $90 in sats to the $1M, then directly buying into it for $322) and cashing for $0. On stars i invested $70 and got back around $180. Typical that i run ok in the $11 $100K, the world hugest donkament. But like death in $300K and $1M.

But yeah whatever blew like $900 on the day and am currently at (-£141.22) for August. Terrible discipline but hey gotta take a shot to win huge sometime.

Its back to actually grinding now. And the good thing is, i HAVE to have a break, apart from 2moro. As moving on tuesday and the internet wont be up til fri/sat i dnt think.

So the aim for 2moro is to grind out like 150 $11 turbo sng's on party, and try run @ like 20% to make back the $280 that im stuck in August, then when i get internet in the flat i can go for it in $10-$55 FO's and $5-10 rbys. And NO exceptions.

Taking Shots...

2007-08-12T01:24:00.001+01:00

As i was +£600 for the first 8 days or whatever of August, i thought id have a few shots at some bigger tournys.

Starting on the thurday i played the $55 FO, $22r and $33r on party, and had no success in those or ne others that day, and finished down $300, then had a grinding day on friday and lost another $100 then tonight (saturday) i had a shot in FTOPS#5, which was a $100r, i got in for about $40, then topped up at the break for $100, and have just been busted for a sweet pot with TT vs AK, the board coming a lovely XXXXK. Sigh...

But after those shots im still +£346 for the month to date. And now its grind time. Just gonna hit party mtt's every day ($10-$55 FO's, $5-10r's) as well as all the $26's on ftp.

Maybe i will take 1 or 2 shots 2moro, at a sunday major. I will see how i feel.

1time.

July roundup...

2007-08-01T01:20:00.000+01:00

Perfectly timed last week of July just as i'm about to move into the flat, i managed to have a +£1999.59 which should help with bills.

In the first 7 months on 2007 i am currently +£7797.41 a whole £797.41 ahead of schedule! So am very pleased with myself.

Moortown is arranging 3 £50 FO's near the end of August, and i think i can make 2 of them (1 coincides with Leeds fest) hopefully i can do well and there should be some good money as 1 of the £50's is a 120 seat max torn.

No more news at the moment, hopefully next post will be from the flat, with some pic's of it.

This is alright...

2007-07-28T14:38:00.000+01:00

Since the last post i cashed for $1.25K on Party for 5th in the $18K then took down the Moortown Masters for £1K.

Again the structure was heaven, until late on when it become sick with 5-10 bb's each. Managed some bigjoe2003 push botting and got to the final 2nd or 3rd of 9. Lucked out with A8 chopping with AT, when i fancied taking down the 35K of dead money in the pot. Then AJ beat AT and i was chipped up. After blinding away, pushbotting some more and AKs vs 77 holding, i flip good etc. I found myself HU.

The first hand of HU (him - 490K, me - 210K) he open shoves the button (blinds 10/20K) i look at A2. I said to him, well....u have KQ, maybe i was conveniently hoping but i called. He tabled KT and i held up. Then a few hands later i limped the button with 94c and got to see a 9d 8s 4d flop, he checked to me and i bet out 30K, the turn came a 7c and he again checked, i bet 55K and he moved in. I made the call and was shown 7d2d. Managed to dodge the diamond or 7 on the river and it was over.

We have signed the house contract and will be ready to move in between the 4th and the 6th. Just need to get broadband up then i'll consider moving.

Also, i found the pokerweek episode my brief appearance was on, (no interview, just a small profile):

Running well...

2007-07-26T09:01:00.000+01:00

So, since the last post, i stuck to plan, putting $500 on Party and FullTilt. I did put $200 on stars against what i said, but only because i saw the pocketfives WCOOP main event sat with 3 seats added that i could'nt resist.

Party has been going well with the BR quickly up to $1050 from a few deep finishes and multiple finals. That is now back at around $800 from a dry spell. FullTilt got off to a good start quickly rising to $1000, with a 2/114 in a $22 FO. This dropped to $600 and is now up at $1900 after a 3rd in the $20r. DTD is slow going at £170, have been trying to play the £3.50 sats into the £6K, then just buying in anyway if i fail. But i have finalled in the £6K and the $5K recently, but unfortunately it was just a 10th and a 9th i think. Then stars is sat around $140 but i can never be arsed to play on it. Much prefer the torns on DTD, Party and FTP. But am currently +£600 for July again, so its been a really up and down month!

Coming up is the Moortown Masters this friday, hopefully i can make a decent score, or Horneris can, having swapped 20%. One time.

On the house hunt front, we are close to signing the contract, and am going into Leeds later to finalise it. As Horneris dropped out of the move (sad news) we had to start the hunt again, looking for 3 beds. And have settled on a brilliant flat that looks amazing inside and i can't wait to get moved in. Surprisingly i am really excited to start uni despite the work, hopefully it can help structure my life more not just the standard 'go to sleep when tired, wake up when not' scenario that i've faced for the past 14 months.

Sigh...

2007-07-17T19:43:00.000+01:00

Running so bad at the minute. After a great start to the month with a $2K score in the million, i was about +£700 after the first few days, this is now at -£45.60, nothing too drastic/damaging, but still nothing to be optimistic about.

I put £200 on DTD to try regain some of Jan/Feb's mentality, but not much has happened so far, but gonna keep hitting the £6K and $5K every night. Think i could catch a break in one.

After cashing out $2000 from stars, i have busto'd it for $500, then loaded another $500 on and busted that. On FullTilt its been similar and have now busted that.

I will load $500 onto FullTilt and $500 onto Party aswell as having £150 on DTD and start playing lots of tourneys. I cba with Stars and 100000 runner fields.

On the live side i've been one 70/30 away from winning £800 twice now. Once AQs losing to AJo 4 handed for a huge pot. Then JJ losing to K5o in another huge pot 11 handed. So sick how i've been running at vital times. But nevermind.

In other news, we nearly have our house sorted for uni/grinding next year. In headingly near all the heavenly bars, looking forward to moving in around early August. Its gonna be a shock for me when uni starts i think. Havn't used my brain properly in about 18 months, so we'll see how quickly i can adapt.

6 months as a ‘pro’…

2007-06-30T17:12:00.000+01:00

I started playing very seriously when I returned from Australia on the 2nd of January. And its been a ride and a half so far. But I’ve loved doing it. I couldn’t imagine having one of those ‘job’ things and think doing what I do is great…

Halfway review:

Jan - +£3,512.38
Feb - +£1,078.95
As you can see, I got off the year to an absolute flyer, with 2 wins and a 2nd in the £8K on DTD aswell as a 1st and a 4th on the live front. And tbh, I thought I was invincible and could pwn anyone, how wrong that was.
Mar - -£1,323.20
Then came March, I was buying into big tournaments, and playing a lot of $3/6 and $5/10 to get even, and was clearly tilting hard, and doing ridiculous things. I remember under raising all in with Q high on the turn once, he called with K high and took it, so stupid. But I believe March was a good thing, it brought me to earth and let me know that I have to play good all the time and cant afford to make poor decisions regarding game selection if I am to continue doing it for a living. And It could have been even worse if it wasn’t for a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 7th and the casino!
Apr - +£22.53
So, lesson learned and onto April…which was another very poor month but my game selecting had improved and I was sticking to tournaments mainly and not running too hot.
May - +£1,274.59
May was a very important month confidence wise and I managed to notch up some tourney wins/decent cashes. As well as making a few hundred from the sng challenge myself and Horneris had. It gave me the belief that I could continue on this path. Live was a blank month in May and ended up losing £69 despite having 10% of Chip Rich’s £1.6K score down in Luton.
Jun - +£1,239.35
I’ve really enjoyed June, and had a great month personally, not on the money front but on the life front. Beginning with an unforgettable trip to Dublin with Linux and then a great week of golf and beers in Spain. Online poker has been pretty poor again, but live has been great. I’ve not played much (6 tourneys) but feel I have got somewhere. I have played my first 2 £50+ slow structured freeze-outs and am proud to say coming 4/150 and 2/70 for £600 and £630 respectably. As well as a HU chop in the £10 w/1RBY for a further £200. I have been playing live poker at casino’s for 15 months now, and that’s my first ‘comma’ month live. So ship it, slow fo’s ftw ldo.

I had set a target of £1K per month for my first 12 months playing ‘pro’ (I don’t like using that word to describe myself tbh, but don’t really know how else to put it!) And am currently +£5797.82 after 6 months. Cant be too sad about falling short but only on minimal amount.

Currently im sorting stuff out for a house in Leeds for uni next year for Myself, Linux, Horneris and ChipRich which will be so heaven and i cant wait! And also a trip for a week or 2 to spain in september to kick back before uni starts for Myself, Sledge13, SnipeR, Horneris, ChipRich and Linux it will be a great week of golf, poker and beers in the sun.

Refreshing break, back to the grind...

2007-06-26T15:31:00.000+01:00

Got back at midnight last sunday from a week at our new villa in spain. Looks great. Hopefully we can get internet set up then myself, ChipRich, Horneris and Linux will venture out for a few weeks in September. Managed to get 4 games of golf in at La Finca, and shipped the £50 bet me, my dad + brother had on. Not bad after not playing for 16 months! Back hitting the ball miles, need to touch up on the short game though.

Im ready to get stuck into online again, and could do with making another £500-600 online before June closes out.

I will be hitting Moortown this weds for the £10 w/1 R/A and again on friday for the £55 FO. The £55 is majorly hyped up by everyone, but i cant help thinking it will turn into a ridiculous crapshoot. With 20 minute blinds and a lack of 75/150 and 150/300 levels it won't be too great. But the fields so soft i can't afford to miss it. A £1.4K first prize would be a nice touch and finish my live poker month off nicely.

Havn't played too much since returning, lost about $100 on stars, and $30 on party, aswell as winning $50 on FTP. So nothing drastic. Hopefully i can make some stuff happen this week. Nothing much to report elsewhere, best of luck to Pab in the $5K Short Handed coming up this week.

Some Success...

2007-06-11T16:47:00.000+01:00

ShipNutzzzzzz. Notched up win number 6 of 2007.

I got deep and decided as the money on this final didnt scare me, i would begin to make a few moves. Then this hand develops:

Sick Squeeze

MP raises to 12K and gets 2 callers, MP had been very active and i thought chances were, he wasnt too strong and by the others flat calls they werent either. So i toyed with the idea of squeezing it, but thought better and ticked the ''fold'' option. Then ChipRich pops up on msn:

Well............... were not playin scrabble now says:

squeeze this

So i think fuck it, and do it. The result was sweet, and as i showed it. It meant i got paid off here:

Impact of sick squeeze

So that put me in sweet shape and i couldn't really lose. So took that down for $870, while at the same time pulling out a 24th place in the $10r for $109. So not a bad afternoon on the stars MTT's.

I have put $200 on Party and $200 on FullTilt. And began to try gain some $26 tokens to play the various gtd's on FTP i had 6 and have played out those to no succes, but still have $220 + a $26 token so will be trying to grind out some more of them. On Party i've been playing the random regular tournies and not succeeded too much, and the balance is at $160. (Finally realised how to turn off the characters on there so ship that, ty Dale)

Playing live at Moortown tomorow and the whole motley crew should be down, should be a good laugh.

holla.

APAT Dublin...

2007-06-05T00:37:00.000+01:00

Day 1 : Friday

I wake up at around 12, excited as hell, and speak to my pro railer Linux sorting out what time his mum will be picking us up. We agree on 6:00ish and i have to grind through the next 6 hours to get to the agreed time. It couldnt come soon enough, bag was packed and i was ready to hit the skies.

His mum turned up to complete the hour drive to the airport, we had planned to go this early so we could have a few beers and watch the england game. We arrived at 7:00ish and headed off to the bar before check in as we couldn't check in yet. We had a few pints while playing some £0.05 a point chinese. I ended up +3 pts. Which i then lost in a few hands at NLHE. This is where the gambling begins. We leave the bar and still unable to check in, we start betting on anything and everything. We see people stood around and know that there are 3 flights checking in: Alicante, Ibiza and Dalamar. So we decide to put a wager on where this group of people are flying to. They seem a family type group, so i go for Alicante, and i lay him 3/1 for his pick of Ibiza. They join a queue and we look at the check in sign reading Dalamar, and the wager is voided. So sick, where the hell is Dalamar anyway.

We the see a lolly machine, with 4 colours in, Linux ships in a 20p for the £1 wager of which colour will shoot out. I have red+pink, himself blue+green. A red one comes flying out and i get a victory dance going. We have various other bets before checking in, including a car video game race ( i owned) a coinflip, high card, a variation of high card, and of course plenty of flips. When we finally got through check in, i found myself -£6 already for prop bets. I then spy another lolly machine, and recall my huge edge from the last lolly bet, and dont see how i can lose, so a £1 bet and a pink lolly later, i have narrowed the deficit to -£5.

We manage to get through to the bar in time to see the Terry goal w/ Beckham assist. I was extremely happy to see Beckhams cross put away and hope he will be a permanent fixture once again.

We board the plane and get a 3 seat aisle to ourselves, perfect for using the middle seat for flipping. We also have a bet on the time we land, odd or even minute. I see an old gummy beat on the floor, must've been there weeks, and offer £10 for JP to eat it. He debates and takes the plunge. And nearly throws up, i couldn't stop the laughter. The drinks come round and we indulge in a shot of rum each. We land at 11:26, so i own the bet. I had now narrowed the margin to -£3 after various flips and the landing bet. Ship it Holla

We get in the airport and have a bet on who's bag comes through first, mine appears and the margin in -£2. We head outside and find a bus going near where the Fitzwilliam club is. We get off and walk forever, before asking some Irish piss heads where it is, they enquire why we'r not going to the hotel first, as we had our bags with us, JP replies...no, these bags are full of money. And luckily they dont buy it, and move on. We approach the cardroom and see Ironside and Tikay outside and greet them before registering inside. We see Kinboshi grinding cash and see a Tightend special SNG in progress in a private room high up over looking the bottom floor of the casino. They have been playing a while and it is a 10 euro rebuy, We walk in a Kev shouts out Miners! and Tighty asks if we want in, As its the hand before rebuys stop, I cant resist to value to get in with a 350 Euro prizepool and fish such as RookieITB, Colchester Kev and Tikay. So we both buy in and recieve 3000 chips, and look around and everyone has 5-20K! We both do no good and i am spite called out by Rookie and Kev, Rookie insta calling my shove with his J8o and Kev having a cool 56s. I liked the 66Q flop tbh, but meh Kev had got there harder. Rookie ended up taking it down. With Lee (our other roomie) taking 3rd.

We departed the casino, and got back to the hotel to drop the bags off and find some food, we walked forever to find it, then looking down a side street we see an 'OPEN' sign glowing in pink neon. ''Yessssss'' the group exclaim and begin heading towards it, a few Pizza's, Burgers and Kebabs later we are ready to hit the sack and be fresh for the saturday, Day 1 of the APAT tourney.

Day 2 : Saturday

We get up around 12ish for the 2:30 pm start, i hadnt got to sleep until about 6ish so was pretty creamed. We make the 20 minute walk towards the casino picking up Lucozade and Water on the way. Before registering and finding a breakfast place.

I draw table 2 seat 7. And begin the grind hanging around 10K but playing a decent number of hands. After the first break i have about 14K. And i return for the 200/400 level (was disapointed not to see a 150/300) and begin making a bigger stack, i 3-bet a guy all in with JT on a 78T flop, i thought he was setting me up to r/r me off a pot from hand 1. Turns out he had 78 but an ok turn+river of JJ sealed the deal and i was up to 22K. I moved up to 28K but lost a lot with AK after missing the flop, then got involved in a pot. I limp early with 5s 2s. He raises it to around 1200 and is fairly deep. I decide to call and take off a flop. Which comes QQ2. I check and he stabs 1400 in. I think for a while and will find out if he has AK on the turn. So i make the call. The turn comes a 5. And i check again. This time he fires 2500. And i dwell for quite a while before finally believing it is AA/KK he has and give it up. By the 2nd break i am annoyed and only have 11K and coming back to blinds of 600/1200 i am not happy. Linux reasures me that i am DEFINITELY going to win.

I return and lose 1800 through the blinds and then i am in the cut off with ATo and another shortie pushes infront of me. I have 7500 and decide its gamble time. I call it and see his JJ, but an AXX flop was a welcome sight to move me up to 16K. I blind away a bit before limping on the button with KcTc, blinds call/check and the flop comes Ac Jc Td. It's checked to me, and i bet out 3500. The big blind says, ''I raise you all in'' and i call it. The turn comes the Qs and its there. Up to about 24K. Then i preceded to win 4/5 big hands:

A double up from Eck's TT vs my AcKc up to 60K ish. 66 on a 962r flop vs A9. Up to 120K. A guy pc'ing himself with 7h9h ran into my QQ. Up to 150K and finally a r/r with AK forced the 2nd CL to pass AQ, up to just under 200K before day 2. A real rush of cards helped me build up to be 1/20 for the final day.

After day 2 had finished i caught up with Kin, Lee, Pilf and Linux at the Pub on the corner. And we decided to go down to Temple Bar for some bevvy's. Eck, Kev, Tighty and Ginger got a Taxi, we decided it would be a good idea to walk it. Stupidest idea ever, it hammered it down so hard and we were all drenched. So a few bevvys in Citi Bar where Kev abused my hair, and it was back to the Kebab shop after Lee walked us a mile the opposite direction. The back to the room for a quick sng with Eck. Then bed.

Day 3 : Sunday

I draw table 2, seat 4. And boy did i regret it, 7 ppl on table 2 were big stacks. And the only 3 short stacks were seat 10, 2 and 3. So standard. I got off to a really bad start, and blinded away before trying to make something happen with 9To in the cut off. I made it 15K (3/6K) and got looked up by the sb. He checked the AXX flop, and i bet out 21K. He quickly called, and checked again on the blank turn, i checked behind, and he shoved the river i quickly folded my ten high. The pot was a mistake, and it was against one of the players i rated very highly.

I was getting impatient and when i was in the bb with T4o, it was folded to the short stacked dutch man in the sb, who made it 15K. He had around 50-55K. I flat called and the flop come AQ3. He dwelled and checked, at this point i knew the pot was mine, but checked behind to find out wether he was trapping. When he led out 9K on the turn, i knew he wasnt. And he checked the river over for me to bet out 18K, he quickly folded and i showed the hand to tell them i was here to play poker.

Players began dropping like flies on table 1. And people were shifting around. Then a hand came up, the Dutch man limped for 8K, i looked at Ad2d and flat called, and we were 4 way to the Td3d5c flop. It was checked to me and i bet out 16K. The sb folded and the bb pushed for about 45K. Jaques folded and i decided to gamble with the huge draw + potential overcard. He turned over Tc4c and the turn was the 4h, giving me the straight, i managed to dodge a T or 4 on the river and a Kd peeled off giving me a winning flush. And boosting me to 220K. I made the final 3/9 with 198K and drew seat 1! A seat i dont particularly like. And despite drawing the 2 big stacks on my left, i felt confident after talking some strategy with Kev.

He asked me to wear a blondepoker.com shirt for the final + interviews and i was very happy to get one! I had been dying to get 1 since ChipRich bagged 1 in Luton.

The final started cagily and i began playing small ball limping and betting at flops, which was working well. Then the guy i had marked as my toughest opponent raised in mid-late position, and i looked down at JJ. I decided to flat call rather than r/r as i hate r/r in the sb as there is such a small range you can have. And a tough opponent can expoit that. The flop came Q22. I checked, bb checks and the aggressor bet out 40K. I called it and the bb folded. We checked it down and he mucked.

Then came a big hand. I limped utg with 88 and Laz behind me raised it up to 36K. I flat called and we are HU to the JTT flop. I check and he checks behind, I was now very confident of his holding. And checked again to him on the 5 turn. He bet out 75K and i had 155K back, i had him pinned at AK/AQ so the outs he had were sick. I couldn't flat call. So i pushed. He dwelled for a long time before folding and i showed the 88. Furthering my message that i'll put it all on the line to win this thing, i was playing ftw and nothing less.

I got to see a flop with a LP limper in the sb with AdQd, the flop came QQ3 (2hrts) and it was checked. The turn came Kh, and i bet out and got called. The river was a brick and i bet out 35K. Now the guy i was in the pot with had shoved on a 2 diamond flop with A6dd. And checking in last pos on this flop, i was convinced he couldn't have XhXh. So i was certainly infront. He dwelled for ages, and announced all in. I called and he turned over KT. I would've refered a flat call from him then, but i think he would have only had 40K back, so he wanted to get it over with. At the final break i was T1/5 with around 420K, the guy i'd marked as the tough opponent also had 420K. I doubled brendan up with AsJs vs his KK. And he was on the comeback.

A big hand then arose where he min raised utg to 40K and i called in the sb with 5d7d after it being passed round. The bb folded and the flop came Td 9d Tc. I checked and he bet out 70K and left about 140K back. I decided to c/r all in, and he quickly called with AA and the diamond failed to make it. If i won the pot id go 1/4 with over 50% of the chips in play and in a very good spot to take it down. As it happens i was down to 109K with 5 bb's. And after shoving a few times i got a call from Brendans Ad8d, i turned over a blind Q8o, and he deservedly bust me out in 4th place winning £600.

I was congratulated and Tikay came over to say how i was 1 of 2 ppl playing real fearless poker on that final and he would have loved to have seen us play HU. The other player he was referring to was Paul Townsend (my toughest opponent). He ended up busting 3rd with KT vs the AJ on Brendan. He was playing to win it, and good on him for gambling there.

I got my 15 seconds of fame, and an interview with Rhoweena Colclough and Dave Compton! Will have to see Poker Week next week and see the comedy of it.

On the way out, i was starving so we went into Burger King, Linux spotted some potential comedy. There was a sign saying ''Add cheese to your order for 40c''. So he paid Lee 1 Euro to go up and ask 1 of the foreign cashiers for some cheese.

Lee: ''Hi, can i have cheese please?''

BK person: ''Bacon and cheese burger?''

Lee: ''No no, just cheese please''

BK: ''can you tell me which number''

Lee:''yeah its there (points at sign) just cheese''

Manager comes over

Lee: ''Hi can i have some cheese''

Manager: ''im sorry sir, u have to get a burger to add the cheese to''

Lee: ''Oh ok, nevermind then''.

We were all pissing ourselves so hard, i have no idea how he kept a straight face, but he did! classic comedy from the APAT Wales winner!

After this we found a traditional Irish pub, and it was having a lock in. Great stuff. So we enjoyed a few pints in there, before heading back to the hotel and getting 1 hours sleep before getting up at 6:00 to get a taxi to the airport. Myself Linux and Kin said goodbye to Lee as his flight was checking in. And played chinese for a while before our flight number was called, we said bye to Kin and headed off home...

...before making some more stupid bets of course.

May Roundup

2007-06-05T00:28:00.000+01:00

May was a decent month for me, and i was happy to make a decent profit for the first time since february.

As you can see the bulk of the winnings coming on stars, mainly due to the $3r result. And blonde's contribution via the $3.5K gtd win

I suffered a £154 loss on DTD, but this isnt much as the mtt's i play on there are £15-£22, so only a 7-10 BI downswing.

My Total profit for 2007 is now at +£5008.47, and at only a few days into June, i am not far behind schedule.

I will be posting a Trip Report of the APAT Ireland event in the next few hours. It should be a fun read describing an amazingly comedy trip.

Dublin Bound...

2007-06-01T05:12:00.000+01:00

Jetting off to Dublin tomorrow for the £75 Freezeout APAT Ireland event. Im going with Linux, and will do a report when i return sometime on monday. Looking forward to meeting the characters whom await us.

Speaking of characters, went to SnipeR's to join him, Sledge13, Mazza and SnipeR's wife Mel, for a cracking homegame. The needling was out in full force, especially from SnipeR and Mazza towards Sledge, but babyface gave bk as much as he got, ship it wonga, obv. We played 3 deepstack freezouts, the first with a 30 min clock (zzzz) then the 2nd 2 with 10 minute clocks which were comedy.

Hopefully this can become a regular game as it was none stop laughter and total comedy.

Some relief...

2007-05-24T12:32:00.000+01:00

Well, as i only post when i win...i should probably post about now.

Went deep in the Stars $3r last night, got the the final 3/9 and managed to come 2nd for $2.4K.

I thought about folding, but grew some sack for once

I wasnt too happy though, as the opponent i drew heads up for the guy id've picked to play from 18 left.

Set up so hard beeyotch

Then he trapped me himself:

Bad/Tilty call

I managed to get out a line i've been wanting to say for a while now. When some kid proposed a deal. I shot back with ''No deals bitches'' so was happy to get it out finally. Speaking of the chatbox, must give a big shout out to messr's Horneris and ChipRich, whom both recieved 1 month chatbans on Stars for their abusive rail comments directed at anyone who won a pot off me. Horneris managed to lose his with 16 left, and ChipRich managed to rail some final table action, losing his with around 8 left.

If i had won, i was going to take a week off from poker and just kick back doing nothing. But that would've probably been a bad idea anyway as i'm finally coming into some form. Maybe the pokergods have something bigger in store for me?!

I'l be jetting off to Ireland on the first for the APAT Dublin event, this should be great fun with the characters that are Linux, Kinboshi, Colchester Kev etc.

Check this out: JimStringer there are some pic's of myself, Horneris and ChipRich after an all day drinkathon then hitting some casino action.

Note: I have updated my 'blogs' section, take a glance at a few, you'll find some entertaining reads.

Send it.

2007-05-14T21:09:00.000+01:00

LeKnave takes the $3.5K down on iPoker, send it.

Well timed win i think, hopefully i have opened the flood gates and my total roll has been boosted back over £4K. So i'm content for now would love another win soon though.

I have cleared 450 FPP's of the 2250 required to clear my $150 bonus on stars. Will try play 100 sng's tomorrow when i can be arsed.

Stoke Team Event

2007-05-13T20:14:00.000+01:00

LeKnave, ChipRich, Horneris, Kinboshi, the nun, MasterOfNun, SnipeR and Sledge13 made up the blondepoker.com team chosen to take on Stokes finest.

The event consisted of 10 teams with 8 players playing an 8 table shootout (1 team member per table) with the top 2 getting through to the final 16. And points were allocated dependant on the positions people busted.

For the 64 who didnt make it through, a bounty tournament was started, giving £5 and 1 point for each bounty a player took.

Round 1

I sat back for a while to get a feel for the table, and was pretty comfortable with it. As blinds escalated i started raising in late pos and taking it down or limping and betting w/e flop came. This worked fine, and as the bb got to over 1/100 of the chips in play, i started using the strategy that has treated me so well in online sng's. It is a strategy i learnt from watching bigjoe2003 play. This involves jamming most hands and rapidly increasing your stack. This play started to especially annoy one player. Who tried to tell me it was poor as ''only a better hand will call'' little did he know, that the chances are its gonna be a while before he find that hand, and by that time, it wont even dent my stack. So i casually stated that this was the optimum play in a short stacked sng. This got under his skin you could tell, for him to come back saying how he plays £100 sng's on Ladbrookes. I couldn't have given less of a shit if he was Joe Hachem, he was my bitch and i was gonna own him.

After returning from the break, we were 4 handed, myself on the small blind for 600, him on the big blind for 1200. It was passed to me and he said, if u push im gonna call you blind. So i looked down at a pretty 83o, of course the 'optimum play' was to push. He dwelled up and stared me down for a while before folding. I just sat there mellow, Huck Seed style. I decided it would be best to show him the hand so i flipped up the pretty cards for all to see.

Of course it had to end as it usually does, the big stack limped on my small blind, the button passed and i look down at 2 red kings. I push, bb folds and the limper insta calls with 2 red aces. And it was all over.

Round 2

The scalp tourny was a great laugh and i was delighted to see i was drawn on ChipRich and SnipeR's table, so i knew we were in for some comedy. Starting with SnipeR putting his scalp card on his forehead, ending with him comparing Horneris to Greg Raymer. We were pissing ourselves. I busted with AK vs 99 and 55. I think id rather cut my eye out then lay AK in that joke of a tourny!

Brent decided to grind it out like Knish, for some reason making us stay way later then necessary, i was nailed from being up since 6am and not looking forward to driving back!

We had some further comedy with myself, Sledge13 (who was hammering back the magners) ChipRich and our pro railer, Linux. Involving him going to the toilet and ChipRich downing his pint, he wasn't too happy on his return to see the remaining dregs. Sledge will tell you that much!

All in all it was a great day and nice to meet the crew again. We were in stitches for the majority of the day and we'l have to do it again sometime. Looks like a few will be up at Moortown on the 25th for the £50 FO. Should be a good laugh.

PokerStars FTW

2007-05-12T08:43:00.000+01:00

Pokerstars 10 billionth hand is coming up, and they are giving away a shed load of things.

10 billionth hand promotion

I have shipped another $600 onto stars as they are doing a reload bonus of 25% up to $150, i should be able to grind the $6's and clear that in about a day or two.

Edit: It should take 2/3 days as it is only the base FPP rate that counts towards clearing the bonus. I will be getting 6 points per $6.50 sng so will have to play 375 to clear the $150 bonus.

In other news, i ran good simultaneously in the $5r and $10r on Stars and iPoker, but only cashed for $260 total coming 7th and 12th. Could've been a lot more. TY to sledge/horneris and chiprich for the rail. A good payoff s coming soon, i know it.

Big MTT day results...

2007-05-10T18:09:00.000+01:00

03:00 - $16.50 FO - -$16.50
03:00 - $11r $55K - -$31.00
05:00 - $22 FO - -$22.00
07:00 - $33 FO - -$33.00
07:45 - $1r - -$2.10
08.00 - $11 FO - -$11.00
08:30 - $2r - +$4.41 FUCKING SHIP IT. HOLLA
10:00 - $33 / $5K - -$33.00
10:15 - $5r - -$30.50
11:45 - $11 / $1.5K - -$11.00
13:00 - $10r - -$51.00
13:15 - $22 Deepstack - -$22.00
15:00 - $8r / $10K- -$24.80
16:15 - $33r / $5K - -$33.00
16:30 - $3r / $4.5K - -$9.30
17:00 - $11 / $2.5K - -$11.00
17:00 - $22 / $10K - -$22.00
17:45 - $22 / $3K - -$22.00
19:00 - $3r / $10K - -$21.30
19:15 - $11 FO - -$11.00
19:30 - $55 / $2K - +$345

Total - -$68.09

Wow, that was nearly so so sick. Then it all came through in the blonde $2K gtd. 3rd for $400, i blew up pretty badly though with 3 left.

Seat 1 - 6K
Seat 2 - 22K
Me - 32K

Seat 1 folds,
Seat 2 raises to 2400
I push all in w/ AQo
He calls with AKo

Hmm, slight cooler i suppose. But i played like a tool on the bubble (weak passive) As i was so desperate to make the cash in this one.

So the mtt day wasnt a total failure, i lost nearly $70, so will now play with the remaining $380 of remaining sng profit.

gg wp nh etc.

For fucks sake...

2007-05-10T18:02:00.000+01:00

The one shot i had at a decent cash ends in the same shite, 4 hours 35 mins into the $22 Deepstack on stars, 24 left. 18 paid.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1081591

And Le-fucking-Knave is gone in 24th.

Big MTT day today...

2007-05-10T09:59:00.000+01:00

Well, as i've only been playing 4-5 mtt's a day, today i decided im gonna have a shot and attempt a comma pay off. I've been coming so close to the big money, but kept falling 1 hurdle short. Today i'm gonna bring my A-game (if i have one) and WIN.

Schedule:

PokerStars
iPoker

03:00 - $16.50 FO
03:00 - $11r $55K
05:00 - $22 FO
07:00 - $33 FO
07:45 - $1r / $750
08.00 - $11 FO
08:30 - $2r / $1K
10:00 - $33 / $5K
10:15 - $5r
11:45 - $11 / $1.5K
13:00 - $10r
13:15 - $22 Deepstack
15:00 - $8r / $10K
16:15 - $33 / $5K
16:30 - $3r / $4.5K
17:00 - $11 / $2.5K
17:00 - $22 / $10K
17:45 - $22 / $3K
19:00 - $3r / $10K
19:15 - $11 FO
19:30 - $33 / $2K

I'll post up my net prof/loss for each game later on, lets win a biggie.

holla.

STT Stats and Live Plans...

2007-05-08T07:20:00.000+01:00

I've been slacking off the sng challenge a bit, and only played like 60 in the past 3 days. I keep playing mtt's looking for a big win, but am always falling 1 hurdle too short these days. 20-50th for like $50 feels like 4-5hours wasted. It'l all be worth it when i can find a sweet cash though.

I've played 469 of the $3.40 and $6.50 turbo's in the past week, and its been easy going so far:

Pretty happy with the above graph and am pretty comfortable 8 tabling the sng's, when i 13 table im usually too slow and miss a few hands. Got tempted to play a few mtt's last night and ended up losing $80 total, because of my trigger happy play in $5r and $10r costing me a few $.

On the live news i have a few things coming up:

Grosvenor Stoke team event - This should be a great laugh, will be driving down with Horneris, ChipRich and Sledge13 to meet Kinboshi and a few others down there for a fun afternoon.

Note: We need another player for this, so if your available this saturday to be in Stoke for 4pm let me know

Moortown Masters - Dave at Grosvenor Moortown has sorted a nicely structured £50 FO (10K stack with 25/50 starting level) Which should be a good tourny and there are a lot of blondes going, so should be a good laugh.

APAT Dublin - Finally got off my arse to sort out going to one of these after Kinboshi non-stop raving about it. Horneris didnt get in, but i am still going with my faithful railbird Linux. Booked the plane tickets, the Hotel and the seat. Very efficient. I leave on the 1st June and return on the 4th for the excellently structured £75 FO.

I'll be hitting some more low buy in mtt's this week, as well as trying to hit a decent number of sng's so i dont lose too badly!

lol Sitngoaments

2007-05-02T05:23:00.000+01:00

I really ground it out today, i think starting this prop bet with Horneris will be a +EV move, even if i lose the bet. Which i won't.

The stipulations for the bet were as follows:

''The tournaments must all start between 00.00 on 1st May, and 23:59 on 14th May (pokerstars time, so that's 5am on Tuesday 1st May, and 4:59am on Tuesday 15th
May our time)No tournaments below the $3+$0.40 level to be played.No-one but us to use our accounts obv.''

So, leaning on the cautious side, and only have $500 or so in my stars account at the moment, i decided to go for the $3.40 10 seater balls. I varied between 8-13 tabling them on my 2 monitor set up. And the results were very positive. I played 188 of them, the most i have ever played in one day by a long way. And i turned a $183 profit (28.6% ROI). I am eager to see what my ROI is like after a more long term number (1000-2000) have been played. I'm hoping i can maintain a 20% ROI while 8 tabling.

To see the current totals for myself and Horneris, Click here.

April Roundup

2007-04-30T17:04:00.000+01:00

I gambled with basically any winnings i had in april, i was up around £1K at one point. Then since that iv swung round to -£150, and am ending the month at +£44.83. I decided to take a shot at a big month to see if i could do it. This time i failed and chunked off the profit buying into the $100K/$350K/$1M on stars. But u live and learn.

So again, a really lousy month, but il live. I've had a very enjoyable month and spent a lot of moniesss! On a lot of nights out. But May is not being a social month, its is a massive grind month. Churning out 1000's of sng's on stars to begin as LeKnave vs Horneris : May 2007 begins.

On another note, i've managed to score 4 free entries into the $100K on mansion again this week. So hopefully, i could run good and scoop $24K first prize and have a relaxing month! That would be the case in an ideal world, but we'l have to see how it goes.

Edit: Colchester Kev made a typo, and it is in fact not me who has won the 4 free entries. I'll get revenge sometime.

So I'll probs have a few punts at the sats for the $100K's, as the values heaven, and the donk ChipRich will be in them if the value needed any more boosting ;-)

So, a great start to May is needed and ideally i would like to win £2300 in may, to attain my target average of £1K/month.

Blonde Bash 4 : Trip Report

2007-04-29T22:57:00.000+01:00

Click Here to read the trip report i wrote on Myself, Horneris, ChipRich and The_Gibs trip down to luton for the blonde bash 4.

Gamble to win...

2007-04-23T02:50:00.000+01:00

Took a few big shots this sunday to try earn so decent scratch.

Bought into the $300K on PTY and the $1M on stars, and managed 1 cash in the 1M for a mere $403 with 2 sick hands which could've allowed me to go deep.

AA cracked

First this hand, i decided that as it was 'moving time' on my table, a limp UTG to stem some action would be required. The play worked perfectly and i was in a great spot to have a T$150K stack.

Final Hand

The final hand was pretty standard, and when the turn fell, i really didnt like it for some reason but at that point there was no real way back.

I thought i played pretty solidly and took a lot of shots at pots on the flop later on, which were taken down uncontested. I really like the calibre of field in the million, and it is usually pretty easy to navigate. Just need the few breaks to go deep.

Currently for April im in profit by +£450 so its not all too bad, and il keep plugging away to try bag a real cash.

I've been playing the MTT's on stars in a very disciplined manner and have been going very well in the $3r+$5r then just flickering out by losing that essential CF with 50ish left.

I did have a $1000 cash in one of the mansion $100K's a few weeks back when i ran QQ into KK to miss a shot at the big monies. Hopefully i can score a decent cash some point soon and have good news to report.

April Joy...

2007-04-05T06:40:00.000+01:00

Ship it, Crucial.

He's back, its been a long time coming but recently the form has been increasing...

But today, it came together, and i hit some mtt's on stars, 4 to be exact...i cashed in both $3r's for $40+ and $30+ respectively, and then i jumped in the $16.50 360 max, to get in a torny with a manageble field on stars for once, and i managed to take it down for $1350. SHIP THAT. HOLLA. I played it pretty well from 9 til 2 left, then went on sick tilt HU after having him on his last legs then him coming back. But i managed to pwn him when the half wilson hit a sweet 2 outer to come bk and proceed to get him in with the best of it a few more times before my 44 held up vs his JQ, a nice 346 flop calmed the nerves.

As i won the Mansion draw on blonde this week, winning entry to 4 of the $100K's, i will be staying in for the next 4 days (except friday when the $100K is @ 11am) I'd love another big score, and will report back on sunday night after a few more mtt's.

Will be hitting Moortown G on Fri, Mon, Tues and Weds next week probs, so hope to get a decent ship there...

March Roundup

2007-04-01T01:08:00.000+01:00

March, as you will already know has been bad news, but its looking i good, and i feel like its coming together again.

On the live front, i have finalled in the 4 of my last 6 visits. Showing £311.50 profit.

On the online front, i have been on a break of sorts, and only played in 2 of the past 6 days, and those sessions were v short. Both sessions have been winning, yielding $173.50 profit.

Maybe both of these ends to March have given me the confidence i need to have a great April. I've been cashing a lot in the DTD tournys and been playing them almost exclusively, and made the £8K's last 2 tables twice, picking up £81.50 and £80.00 respectably, only a coinflip away from a big £1K+ cash. So i think im back on track and looking forward to starting afresh in april.

Results:

Live:

The end of March completes the 12th month of me playing live in casinos, of those 12 months, 10 are in profit and 2 in slight loss:

April -- £79.75
May -- £122.85
June -- £252.25
July -- £157.80
August -- £19.00
September -- £200.12
October -- £196.70
November -- -(£98.30)
December -- £122.00
January -- £310.00
February -- -(£23.00)
March -- £244.50

It was the first time i actually added them up in monthly blocks, and am really pleased with how succesful my first year was on the live scene. Winning £1583.67 in £5-£20 tournys is an ok achievement for my first 12 months, hopefully i can recreate it over the next 12, and up the stakes up to the £75 level.

Online:

As you can see, -£1567.70 for march. SO SICK.

But i dont want to dwell on it, its only one month in the scheme of things and we'l see how april begins, please be another January, one time.

I aim to play 15 live tournys in April, as i'm having a jam packed easter schedule with ChipRich and Horneris, it was going to include the £100 event @ Merrion Grosvenor, advertised as a 10,000 stack 25/50 60 minute clock job, but this is incorrect and it is only 5,000 chips, so we will give it a miss and grind out the £20's @ Moortown.

holla.

Live week...

2007-03-22T20:11:00.000Z

Been playing a lot live this week.

Sun - £10 w/1RB @ Grosvenor Moortown
Mon - £15 w/1RB at Grosvenor Moortown
Tue - £25 FO @ Grosvenor Stoke
Wed - £10 w/1RB @ Grosvenor Moortown

I won the Monday torn for £275, only 25 runners...but it increased the confidence in my live game.

I played the game rly well, and pretty LAG due to how passive most of the field were. The final was a piece of cake except for ChipRich who bust out in 4th. Going into the final 3 i had about 140K vs 20K and 40K so it was mine to lose, and thankfully i didnt.

On tues we took a trip to Stoke and met up with Kinboshi off the blonde forum, he was a decent laugh as ever and me and him bust fairly early so decided to give some abuse on the rail. Which is always fun.

And on weds we met up with Sniper and Sledge13 (Clint+Marc) also from the blonde forum. And had a great laugh as Marc lost with every premium hand possible the highlight was certainly just after his AA was cracked by 77 for a £160 pot and his QQ cracked by K8. Sniper shouts "SHIP IT......STANDARD" right across the cardroom to ChipRich+Horneris on the final table of the tournament, and the entire table were in hysterics. All credit to sledge, he took his beats like a man and re-loaded and ground some of it back, respect sir. The cash game was great, had a short handed £0.50/£1.00 and i finished off +£63 which was pretty sweet.

Live profit for this week:

Mon = -£17 (10% of CR's 3rd)
Tues = +£208 (Gave CR 10% of diff)
Weds = -£25
Thur = +£46

TOT = +£212

Back to my online grind im spending far too much ££ at the minute and really have to cut down and starting pwning online...something i have forgotton how to do.

I've set up the old PC monitor in my room which is now hooked up to the laptop to allow me to easily 8 table mtt's on various sites. atm i have cash on Party, Stars, DTD, FullTilt and Mansion. So will be playing all sorts of mtts before the close of march to try get in profit. Let the grind/gamble begin.

holla.

Seeing red...

2007-03-17T11:01:00.000Z

Alas, it returned dreaded BR crushing tilt...LOL im so fkin sick.

Was hitting the HU cash tables on FT, Only $0.50/$1 and pwning this fool, then his 7d8d beats my TT on a T8X flop, running 2 diamonds, so i was like ok, hes doubled his $40 to $80, so i reload for a hundred to own this guy so hard.

Then i get it in with QQ pre vs his TT, he duely peels a T off for the $180 pot. At this point i was fuming, and booted my bed obv.

I decided it would be a realy good idea to play some $2/4, tbf, i pwned in this game and won about $70 then launched into some $1/2 CapNL. I just played real bad, and donked off the rest of the roll...only about $200. At this time i was also putting my £120 i had left on DTD into a £1/2 table then a $2/5 table, obv i got it all in with 5h3h and got outdrawn by his A6. brutal.

I've told u all abut 4 times now how big a cash fish i am, but for some reason i decide i have to launch back. This was all after a downswing on the party $11 sngs, so i was pretty steamed. And lost another $200 in $1/2 on party where my set lost to a FD.

I went away composed myself and hit a few of the early morning MTT's on party, the $44 i manage to take down for $592, LOL donkaments. So tilt was over, and neutralised. holla. This session really was a wake up call though. I really shouldn't play cash, i can come bk to sngs later, but for now im gonna go bk to Jan+Febs glory days and start mulling the MTT's again.

Hopefully i can lock up a big win and get March into the greeeeeeeen. So on reflection it was a dumb idea, but we all do it. And i think i have learnt something this time.

I feel it is really important to lock up some decent rollage for october to be Br'd for playing the sunday $215's everywhere as well as trying to follow in some of the greatest in the $10-$50r's. To hit these games i would say i would like to invest 2% of my roll max into an mtt. So $215x50 = $10,750. That is a very realistic aim and tbf all i have to do to acheive that is break even until oct.

Back to the grindstone. peace.

The plan...

2007-03-12T22:31:00.000Z

I know a lot of people will say im stupid for what i propose to do at the end of this year, but im young and there is only one thing i want to do with my life...

I dont want to look back and think what could have been, this is my shot. I have to take it.

I was planning on going to Nottingham Uni in Sept/Oct this year, but, as anybody would tell you, there is no way i could get a degree this year. I would be online or at DTD all the time grinding out an existence on a £4K a year course. So why should i do it there when i can do it in a nice house with 3 of my best mates for £1200 a year max?

So this is the new plan...

LeKnave, Horneris, ChipRich and Linux are moving into Linux's house when his mum leaves in October. The for of us will be grinding it out, going out and generally living the dream, well, living my dream anyway.

I have a lot to look forward to and a lot of ideas have been flying about regarding what to do before october. Whether it be grinding it out here at home or working out of the country for 4-6 months with Rich, its just about building a roll to ensure going broke at ship it standard mansion is an unlikely scenario.

Before you say, what if u blow it? ur whole futures gone...I will infact have a safety net for if i do happen to fail/go broke. I will be defering my university entry until sept/oct 2008. This way i have the year to pwn it up massive and try to make the dream a reality. And secondly, if i fail its out of my system and time to grow up and move on to get a degree and poker wont be such a big part of my life there and i can get on with work.

So the plans for apr-sept arn't really finalised, from apr-aug i will either be here grinding out the $11 sng's on party. Or be on a cruise ship working with Rich. I would be equally happy to do either. I think it would be beneficial to do either, grinding for experience, cruise ship for a break bfore the solid grind begins. In sept the 4 of us will be taking a month long vacation to relax and play some golf in the sun at my villa in spain.

Then we will return fresh to begin our lives...say what you want, if i take my shot and miss, so be it...but if i hit the bullseye who knows what could happen.

I've been spending a lot of money recently on going out, see the latest venture at http://shipitstandard.blogspot.com. And this has left me with approximately £3.8K in the bank and a tad over £1K online. So i have £4.8K to work with and thankfully my parents bought me a laptop for my birthday so that saves my £800 or so...With this £4.8K i think i am going to have £4K for poker, putting £800 into a new bank account which i will use for buying non-poker related things such as going out, buying clothes etc. I will cash some money into this every month to make sure it doesnt go empty.

But i will attempt to grind this £4K and by october the 1st i would like a BR which can cope with $50 sngs. i will settle for a £5K BR by then, left over from the summers spending.

Thats the plan anyway, how well i stick to it we will see, but its time to get serious and set myself up for the shot of a lifetime.

March Blues...

2007-03-07T01:34:00.000Z

Its not pretty news.

Im getting pwned all over the shop so far in the short 7 days of march. I just added up all the prof/loss and realised im stuck £769.63 so far.

This is mainly down to today tbh, i bought into the £12K on DTD for £55, and played like heaven. Down to 80ish players, i r/r a button raise all in with 88, it is 2900 more to call, he has 3100 left and calls with 9cTc. I duely lost, and was very annoyed.

The £8K went like shit and the $4K i busted with AA vs TT in hand 2. So donked off $250 in Stars cash + £100 in DTD cash. No idea why, but i just did.

Currently my Stars BR is $16.76, shipitholla. And i cant be arsed depositing on there anytime soon, so will probs try crush $6 Hu's til im broke/got enough to move up to $10's. See what happens. Il probs play the £8K + $4K's on DTD every night + try get a sweet cash that i have been relying on over previous months. Probs hit the $10-$30 Party FO's in search of soft wins. And finally i might try give my Party roll a boost by grinding stt, see how soft they are @ $10 and $20.

As for BPL, il wait til the move on March 12th to start hitting the iPoker MTT's as traffic on tribeca is appalling with the 2 main sites (VC + BlueSquare) already moving.

Better news next time hopefully.

holla.

Standard

2007-03-05T14:33:00.000Z

This is by far the sickest hand i have been part of...and it was live.

Cash game 50p/50p

I get dealt [Jd Jc] on the big blind.
4 limpers.
I raise to £2.50
I get 1 caller in MP

*FLOP* [Jh 6h 4h]

I bet £5
MP r/r to £15
I call £10

*TURN* [Jh 6h 4h][6d]

I check
MP bets £15
I r/r all in for £28.50
MP insta calls

i assume he has the nut flush..

He turns over [6c 6s]

At this point my heart sank, and i know how negreanu felt in that brutal hand...

February results

2007-02-28T14:42:00.000Z

Another solid month, i didn't expect it to be as good as Jan, but i can cope with it being this good!
Some good results on the MTT front, another 2 wins to add to the list. The sng front went pretty well, and the cash games were toned down! After some BR breaking on Stars. The -$1479.93 on stars is a big chunk of cash game loss but i'l live and learn.

On the live front, i have not played ONE single thing in february! Which is poor, and March will be an action month in terms of casino visits. I am infact, making my first casino visit for feb tonight, on the 28th ffs! So it could well be a losing month on the live front ;-)

So, £4.3K up for 2 months, thats not a bad wage i suppose...a lot more then a part time job could get! But hey, maybe il get pwned in march + blow it all then get a part time job and update this blog as a 'year in the life of a min wage slave'.

I dont think i could stick having a job, so back to the disciplined grind.

holla.

Fuck the ultimate grinder, Im a balla.

2007-02-27T15:43:00.000Z

TBH, i was only the ultimate grinder for about an hour after that post...probs just gonna ball it up playing 20 mtt's a day, and going back to crushing the stt's on stars (might try party) at the $27 level.

Been playing a sick amount of mtt's of late...with 2 1st's and some 20-30th's in sick fields of 1K+. So its only a matter of time til i can peel of a pwning cash.

Went back to a few $1/2 cash games last night after deciding to be well balla. This obv failed and i was playing stupid LAG and got owned for $300, then clawed it back with some $27 stts and stars.

Tonight il probs grind some stt later on when they're shit soft, aswell as 10ish mtt's. Nothing the high pressure just a relaxed session.

WSOP Europe

2007-02-26T18:49:00.000Z

Ship It. Standard!

Best news an 18 year old poker player can hear! The WSOP is coming to Europe!

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2007/2/harrahs-annouces-world-series-poker-europe.htm

Schedule wont be announced til may but im so excited at the prospect of trying to sat it in to the £10K 6 day main even! would be the experience of a lifetime!

I love party

2007-02-26T03:22:00.000Z

2 days ago i shipped $500 onto party..

Today i chopped the $4K GTD $10FO for $1325.15, i got a tad more due to the CL...

SHIPIT. STANDARD.

Thats 2 mtt wins within the week, running so hot atm, could have been even more, with a few near misses in the $10K (stars) and $5K (tribeca). But il take the 2!

The grind...

2007-02-23T11:53:00.000Z

Thought i'd test the waters on PartyPoker this week after being told how soft the competition was on there.

So i now have cash on 4 poker sites:

BPL: $500
Party: $500
Stars: $500
DTD: £600

I cashed £2000 of DTD after the mtt win, for fear of tilt + ridiculous cash game play! LOL!

I'm playing with the attitude that i dont care if i lose the $$ off a site, as i can just re-launch cash straight on. But i think im gonna actually grind each individual BR, treating each individual one as my whole BR. Hopefully i can make a killer BR on each site.

This probs wont work on Party + BPL as il be playing $20rbys etc. So my cash/sng form will have to be good :-)

Send the Sherbert

2007-02-22T02:42:00.000Z

FINALLY...

Shipped home the £8K for the 2nd time this year for £2240, and boy it felt good. TBH i didnt really do anything early on at all, was always a low stack, then an utg limp with AA started it all off, and i ground it out solid before turning it on 5 handed and catching some flops.
Was thankful when we moved form 2 tables to the final that the super LAG player who had been on my left was now on my right, that was a huge bonus.

I went for it tonight on the mtt's, playing 16 in total investing nearly $400, and with just 1 cash of $130 in the $5K on tribeca it wasnt looking to good. Then the £8K saved my ass.

That result has helped leaps and bounds for the outlook of february and hopefully i can hang on for another winning month!

I think im gonna cut out the $20K + $15K's on tribeca for now, because they turn into such sick crapshoots that my BR cant handle the swings just yet.

I'l probly just play the £12K, £8K and $4K on DTD, and the $5K's on tribeca.

As far as the ultimate grinding is going, technically the BR on stars is $415, a $10 loss....but it is actually a profit from cash, as i played $25 worth of mtt's on there 2nite, so its a $15 profit for the grind atm, i will get solidly onto that 2moro.

hoLLa

The Ultimate Grinder

2007-02-17T10:12:00.000Z

I want to become a great cash player, and move up the limits to the at least consistently playing $2/4.

And i realise the huge importance of a decent BR. So the stt challenge is going to go on standby, and WILL be picked up again from day 14.

But as my BR on stars cant cope with the swings of playing the $27's. Im going to grind.

I will be 8-12 tabling.......$0.05/$0.10! PMSL, it sounds so embarrassing...but it has to be done. I will be playing this until the BR hits $500, then moving up into $0.10/$0.25 until $1000, then $0.25/$0.50 and so on. If ever my BR drops below the min for the game im playing in, (2000xBB) then i will drop back down.

It would be better for me to do this on blonde due to 30% RB, but the tables are about the size of houses so i think stars would be easier for multitabling.

My starting BR for this is $425, from $1500 that ive put into it this year. The losses are ENTIRELY due to cash games, I am in slight profit from MTT's and have a nice profit for STT's. So im stuck about $2000 from playing stupid cash games like $2/4 and $5/10.

So now it begins, here is the tale,

Of the ultimate grinder.

Days 12/13

2007-02-17T10:04:00.000Z

Ran ok for these 2 days, started moving to 4 tabling which increased my concentration levels and i ran better.

Day 12/13 Results: +$9 (+$166.50 total)
ROI: +2.3% (after 258 tournaments)

Breakdown:

1st: 4 (34)
2nd: 4 (29)
3rd: 4 (30)
4-9th: 21 (165)

Days 10/11

2007-02-15T16:06:00.000Z

Shipped a decent number for once, but i was falling asleep for the latter 15 but still did ok. Had a bash at 6 tabling which went pretty well tbh.

Day 10/11 Results: +$121.50 (+$157.50 total)
ROI: +2.6% (after 225 tournaments)

Breakdown:

1st: 6 (30)
2nd: 3 (25)
3rd: 6 (26)
4-9th: 23 (144)

Gonna continue to solely play the 9 seater $27's on stars, as well as decent gtd's on crypto and tribeca.

I will now being playing tribeca tournys from the BPL skin due to a new loyalty scheme introduced today, so i cashed £600 from BS and wacked $500 into BPL.

I am really going to grind for the rest of feb as i really really dont want a losing month, but it will be a task to make feb positive being stuck around the £600 mark atm. More details on this one later.

Days 7/8/9

2007-02-14T09:22:00.000Z

Only 23 played in these few days, im seriously lacking motivation and keep hitting $2/4 cash instead.

Day 7/8/9 Results: +$31.50 (+$36 total)
ROI: +0.7% (after 187 tournaments)

Breakdown:

1st: 3 (24)
2nd: 4 (22)
3rd: 1 (20)
4-9th: 15 (121)

Not exactly shipping it on home, but at least its green.

Been hitting some form on the bluesq early morning multis, another 2 FT's in 2 days, not major cashes tho, just a $150 and a $240.

ShipShipHolla

Days 5/6

2007-02-12T04:15:00.000Z

Not got a great deal done on these days as i've been playing live and going out.

I have been playing 2 tables at once instead of 4, and results are really showing improvement.

Day 5/6 Results: +$274 (+$4.50 total)
ROI: +1% (after 164 tournaments)

Breakdown:

1st: 3 (21)
2nd: 2 (18)
3rd: 1 (19)
4-9th: 3 (106)

I will continue to 2 table them at the mo to see if i continue with the current success.

Day 4

2007-02-09T05:49:00.000Z

Today was so sick, everything went against me. It was just one of those days and no matter how many times it went in ahead, it usually finished up losing, hence the lack of games!

Day 4 Results: -$198 (-$270 total)
ROI: -6.4% (after 155 tournaments)

Breakdown:

1st: 3 (18)
2nd: 1 (16)
3rd: 1 (18)
4-9th: 19 (103)

So, its off to a pretty poor start to say the least, but i'm not too bothered about that at the minute, i 'think' and hope, that it is all short term variance and i think that i am playing these in a very decent style, and positive results shouldn't be too far away.

Day 3

2007-02-08T05:03:00.000Z

Today i wasn't very motivated, and only swung slightly in profit and slightly below profit all day.

Day 3 Results: -$40.50 (-$72 total)
ROI: -2% (after 131 tournaments)

Breakdown:

1st: 1 (15)
2nd: 4 (15)
3rd: 2 (17)
4-9th: 12 (84)

Tomorrow il grind it hard and try get 50, and have a profitable day.

Day 2

2007-02-07T05:43:00.000Z

Today, went ok tbh..but when it came to HU i just kept losing, not really due to bad luck, i kept getting it in way behind. And deservidly staying there!

Day 2 Results: +$153 (-$31.50 total)
ROI: -1% (after 112 tournaments)

Breakdown:

1st: 5 (14)
2nd: 7 (11)
3rd: 8 (15)
4-9th: 26 (72)

So thats 112 tournaments in 2 days, nicely above target, i'm happy to get a green day on the board. And hopefully this will continue into tomorrow.

I've made 2240 FPP's in 2 days now, should be well on the way to platinum status :-)!

Day 1

2007-02-06T05:17:00.000Z

Wow, i was really impressed by the shear volume of STT's i got through today. I was aiming at 30 at day, and thought this may be a struggle, but i managed 66 today!

Day 1 Results: -$184.50 (-$184.50 total)
ROI: -10.4% (after 66 tournaments)

Breakdown:

1st: 9 (9)
2nd: 4 (4)
3rd: 7 (7)
4-9th: 46 (46)

So, obviously not the ideal start, but i managed to cream in a lot of FPP's and tomorrows another day...

Sit and Go BR building

2007-02-05T17:20:00.000Z

After the failure of my last challenge...

I've decided to try another, it will be remeniscent of thetanks 4000 sng's in 4 months:

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=18547.0

I will be playing the $25+$2 9 seater turbo's on Stars, from a $1500 BR.

As of yet, i have no real idea to what my ROI will be, i would like it to be somewhere between 10-15%. I will be aiming at around 30 a day, to really grind out a BR.

The main objective of this is bankroll building. Secondly i would like to become a platinum status VIP member on stars. Currently as a Gold member i recieve 20 FPP's for each $25+$2 i play, at 30 per night that equate to 600FPP's a night, and if i can cruch 500 a month, this will enable me to achieve platinum status.

After realising that playing MTT's on Crypto and Tribeca are much more profitable then Stars, i will probly hit the $5K's and $20K on tribeca and the £8K on Crypto.

I will report back every day probably with current results.

Progress

2007-02-03T02:38:00.000Z

I have been running really well in the MTT's and the HU's, i think my HU game is coming along greatly. And i've stayed totally away from cash.

I'm happy to say i've had 2 FT's in 2 days, both coming in the 4pm bluesquare $5K Gtd, an 8th for $250ish and a 2nd for $1225ish.

I have been making a timetable of MTT's each day, and hitting 9/10 a night. Its been pretty successful and find myself £500 up in february already. I aim to continue playing the $55 HU's and hitting a decent amount of MTT's a night, and the results should hopefully come flying in.

Due to a poor end to Jan, i finished £3200 in the green, it could have been better, but im not complaining in the slightest, a v good start to the year.

Sunday night/January results

2007-01-29T19:59:00.000Z

Played in another of the $215's for the 2nd week in a row.

I started of really well, and doubled up to 20K real fast, then i got called by AK on a ragged board for a chunk of chips somehow, good call i suppose but this hit me hard and i couldn't get it together for a while. I went fairly deep and cashed for $470, a welcome sum after the cash games the night before. Another cash in the $3r only for about $30, but it all helps, so i am happy to be finally getting some MTT results together again. Trying really hard to play consistently. Played a few $50 HU's today and my style is really working well in them, after watching Ivey pwn Matusow on poker after dark game 4.

The Walsall sat was a let down, 150 players, 5 seats but i lasted about 4 hands, when i pushed with KcQc on an AcXcXd flop and was looked up by AA. I am probably gonna try to get into this again tbh, i didnt concentrate on it at all as was still tied up in the warm up.

I'm gonna make it a mission to play in either the million or the warm up every 2 weeks, i think 2 weeks is enough time to earn 13,000 FPP's to buy in, or 5400 to sat it.

Gonna continue to play consistently in the GTD's for a few weeks, as well as hitting some more HU's.

Jan Profit/Loss

Stars: +$652.33
BlueSq: +£98.06
DTD: +£2775.96
Mansion: -£5.28

TOTAL: +£3,202.38

Introducing LeKnave, The MTT player

2007-01-28T16:43:00.000Z

Online cash game poker is ridiculous, well its not...but it is for me...

I lack the ability and discipline to play this section of the game and will not be doing for a considerable time.

I will be playing a great deal of MTT's each night aswell and MTT SNG's such as the $12 45's and $22/$11 180's.

I have deposited on BlueSquare (Tribeca) and am really enjoying playing MTT's on there atm, doing really well and increased my BR by 50% already, (£200 deposit).

Last night despite being dangerously tired, i played a LOT of MTT's, i played solid good poker for once and it really came together:

Started of with an early morning $30 NLHE on trbieca which i came 4th in for $125, then i won my seat into the GUKPT $100r sat in a $10r sat. I then took a break and came back that night for the decent $100K and $20K freerolls on stars, aswell as the deepstack, the $20 $10K and the $3r $10K, i cashed in both $10K's, 14th in the $20 F/O which i lost a 220K pot to go chip leader when my AK failed to outdraw 99. I was very happy with the way i played this and i believe that race was the difference between a 4 figure sum and the $120 that i recieved.

On the live poker side, i went to the grosvenors £10 second chance torny, which was extremely boring and i didnt last 2 long. Then redeemed my lost £23 and some more in a £0.50/£0.50 cash game.

Challenge Day 2

2007-01-22T03:37:00.000Z

I completed games 21-40 and the results are not quite as good, but still respectable

Session profit = $343 ($742)

1st = 1 (4)
2nd = 1 (2)
3rd = 2 (3)
4th = 1 (1)
5th = 2 (2)
6th = 0 (0)
7th = 1 (1)
8-45th = 12 (27)

After 16 of this session i was +$391, but a poor final 4 brought it back down.

Invested = $480
Return = $1232
Profit = +$742
ROI = 174%

The BR

DTD = £1242.33 (+£3242.33)
Stars = $2074.35 (+544.00)
Live = +£396

TOTAL = £4182.33

Will be solidly crushing the $12 45's all week and limiting the amount of multis il be playing on stars.

The Sunday Million

2007-01-22T02:55:00.000Z

Today i did something i'd never done before...

Started the day with the intent of playing the the Million. I hit a $10r and spent $41 to no avail, and then the $39 lost a CF with QQ and no joy there.

So i had stuck $80 trying to get into the damn thing that only costs $215 to buy into! So....i decided, why bother playing satelites when i could play $12 45's and freeroll myself into it.

So at half 5 i played my first batch of 4, i had four hours to earn $215+$80 (to freeroll entry and satelite losses)

The first batch i ran ok, and made $51...the 2nd one i made 3 finals and finished $260 to the good. I was thinking of taking the money, but a good friend told me you only live once. So i took the plunge and put $215 into the tourny.

Managed to double up to 26K after a short while with a 9s7s on a Ks Js Xx Xs 9x board vs QT.

Soon after this i was up to 50K and playing well, the i got AA on the button, utg min raise to 3200, cut off made it 9700, so i pushed for 50K, utg folded and the cut off called with JJ, i held up and i was up to 100K! The bubble burst, I had cashed in the sunday million!

I managed to take my stack from 100K to 250K without have to show down a hand. Soon we were moving steadily up the pay brackets and this hand arose:

I get Ts8s in LP and limp for 12K,

SB completes and BB checks.

FLOP - Qs 9s Td

SB checks, BB bets 36K, i move all in for 200K, SB folds and the BB calls with Q9.

I miss the draw, and im out in 287th for a tidy $809.04

I was very happy with how i played, and was in a 50/50 to gain 400K in chips and have a real shot at some big money.

I think it is still a little expensive to make it a regular thing with my current BR, but we'l see if i feel like trying again in a few weeks!

Hitting the $12 45's...

2007-01-21T05:26:00.000Z

So, i got off to a really good start playing the $12 45 seaters for my challenge and the results for the first 20 are as follows

1sts: 3
2nds: 1
3rds: 1
4ths: 0
5ths: 0
6ths: 0
7ths: 0
8th-45ths: 15

This totals at:

Invested = $240
Return = $649
Profit = +$409
ROI = 170%

I feel the strategy i am currently using will enable be to come in the top 3 a great deal of the time rather then numerous 6th/7ths which dont pay well at all.

The BR

DTD = £1283.03 (+£3283.03)
Stars = $1228.31 (+£115.55)
LIVE = +£396.00

2007 Profit to Date: +£3794.58

So, stars is picking up now with some disciplined play. I will return for another batch 2moro when im not too tired and underperforming!

A challenge...

2007-01-20T05:07:00.000Z

So, as you know i've been struggling to discipline myself to play solidly, hopefully that will all change with the introduction of my first challenge.

I will be settling down on stars to play 45 seater $11+$1 tournaments 4 at a time. I will be aiming to play 20 a night to begin and see how this goes.

I had made a fair bit of money from this to revive my BR and would like to make a decent sum from them. At the moment i have not got enough experience of them to predict ROI/Profit etc.

The payouts are as follows: $154, $110, $77, $55, $44, $33, $22 for the top 7. I will update with the first batch later on.

Peace Out.

The £8K calls again

2007-01-19T04:40:00.000Z

It wasnt long since my last post that i was back on the £8K g'tee's final, this time i began 8th or 9th in chips but managed to win the thing for the tidy sum of £2103.75. I played the final pretty well, playing passively pre-flop and aggressively on flops/turns. Going into 3 handed i felt very confident with my 300K stack vs their 2 50K and 60K stacks.

I've not being playing much side action on crypto, leaving that to stars, where i am happy to update i have ran very well. Last blog i was in crisis mode on stars with a small portion of my origional BR remaining, i have ground that up playing $0.50/$1 cash and $11+$1 45 man tournaments. These tournys have proved exceptionally valuable to me in reviving the BR and winning 3 for $154 a pop has aided tremendously.

I decided on winning the £8K i would cash out some funds so as not to play too high stakes, so i took out £2200, meaning that i am £2000 up + the balance i have on the site.

The BR

DTD = £1297.31 (+£3297.31)
Stars = $1005.01 (+£2.54)

TOTAL = +£3299.85

So, both in profit again! Looking good and i'm full of confidence at the moment, but usually when im full of confidence...its going to get ugly, we'l have to see!

Unfortunately i haven't played live for a while mainly as i was waking up at gone 7pm this week, i will try to make a trip or 2 next week.

Happy Grinding.

Sick HU cash and another FT

2007-01-13T02:23:00.000Z

Playing some HU cash from: Game #4141800844: Hold'em NL ($0.25/$0.50) - 2007/01/12 - 04:01:29 (UK) until Game #4142156724: Hold'em NL ($0.25/$0.50) - 2007/01/12 - 05:36:38 (UK) i managed to turn a $30 innitial buy in ito $243.05, from the same player.

$213.05 in 1 hour 35 mins wasnt bad going, and helped with the losses id encountered on stars.

The main reason i won so much was basically i had my way with a few cold decks which tilted him and he started making reckless plays for no reason.

I took down 4 pots over $50 in the game, he took none.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Played the sat to the £8K on crypto and qualified for £3, tourny was slow going and I managed to build a nice stack with a well timed KK vs. FD, I got to the final 1st in chips and managed to grind out a 2nd place finish for £1463.00, a good result on a slow day. That’s 2 finals in 2 days on crypto.

I think I will begin to play a good number of mtt’s, for example:

DTD - £12K, £8K, £4K, $4K
Stars - $10K, $25K, $15K, $20K, $18K

I’ll see how this schedule goes for a while. I played the £8K pretty well up to the final, but on the final I couldn’t get anything going, mainly because of the player to my left (the eventual winner) being a very good aggressive player.

The BR

DTD = £1823.24 (+£1623.24)
STARS = $434.31 (-£289.07)

TOTAL = +£1334.17

Safe to say, the MTT cash helped BIGTIME.

Got a few home games coming up this weekend, then probs go to grosvenor a few times in the week, must do some revision though! It appears il need to pass, as i cant make a living off PokerStars sit and goes! ;-)

Until next time, Happy grinding.

LeKnave

Tilt...with a pleasant aftertaste

2007-01-12T03:16:00.000Z

I thought he was gone, but alas…he returned: LeTilt.

I wanted to be perfectly honest with this blog in the same fashion that BlueScouse is with his so i'l tell you the story of a burnt bankroll:

After the hopeful ending of the last blog, it all went pear shaped. I started to hit some $33 HU’s and got on a real bad run, lost about 5 and won 1, then launched into a $55 HU to recoup some losses, suffice to say, I lost and found myself down around $150.
Then the uncontrollable wreck I was decided it would be a good idea to get into some $0.50/$1.00 cash and after a $25 pot win with JJ, I got pwned all over the shop, and made a filthy $40 call on a J high board with QQ which I knew was nowhere.
So after another $60 loss, the hero gets into a $1/$2 cash game with a $120 stack, this goes in one hand:

Dealt to LeKnave [Ts 8c]
BDaws leaves the table
sexuelity: folds
LeKnave: checks
cosa nostra1: folds
Elvis-73: calls $1
wader: checks
*** FLOP *** [8s 5s Tc]
Elvis-73: bets $4
wader: folds
LeKnave: raises $8 to $12
Elvis-73: calls $8
*** TURN *** [8s 5s Tc] [7s]
Elvis-73: checks
LeKnave: bets $18
Elvis-73: raises $152 to $170
LeKnave: calls $88 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [8s 5s Tc 7s] [Ac]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Elvis-73: shows [9h Jh] (a straight, Seven to Jack)
LeKnave: mucks hand
Elvis-73 collected $240 from pot

Another terrible call, boy I was on fire in these games! At this point I was so annoyed I wasn’t even thinking tbh so the call was always coming.

I then started talking to Brent and Rich about how stupid I am etc, they cheered me up and I got bk into the swing of this with my new $500 BR with some $0.25/$0.50. I’m going to play 4 tables of $0.25/$0.50 for 4 hours a day, in blocks (3 6 handed and 1 9 handed) to attempt to aid the BR back to its original state.

I'm not sure what it is that makes me do this, but its going to be a big problem with my online play unless i sort it.

Later on I hit the $25K and $15K on stars, missed the cash in both…then decided to hit the $4K on crypto with Brent, with the added bonus of a pint in a last longer bet. Didn’t really see much in the way of cards for a while then made a few moves and generated a bit of a stack. Then 2 AK’s in a row got me to the 30K mark. People started dropping off and we had the final 10, with 7 left I push UTG with Ktos for 27K (1500/3000 blinds) and the BB woke up with AA and it was over, $270 for the 7th place isn’t to be sniffed at after the night I’ve had.

So, lessons to take into account:

Stay in the same game you have planned to play
If you feel you’re tilting, take a break - have some sort of Kit Kat
Ship It home in a MTT

The BR
DTD = £339.06 (+£139.06)

STARS = $536.16 ( -$463.84)

I decided to look at this the good way, I am still in profit in 2007!
DTD = +£139.06
STARS = -£238.33

LIVE = +£396

TOTAL = +£296.73

So, it is now that the grind starts:

Stars

$0.25/$0.50 Cash Tables
$22+$1 HU games

DTD

$0.25/$0.50 HU Cash Tables
£0.15/£0.25 6 Handed Cash Tables

The next update WILL be in a week or so, unless another big night like tonight happens.

Grinding up the BR

2007-01-11T16:31:00.000Z

Playing live im on fire at the moment, managed to cash for 4th last night for £110. Then made another £25 in cash.

But online its slow going, mainly as im not committed any more, this is going to change. Instead of chatting on msn/browsing blonde im going to be playing solid amounts of poker. Playing 2-4 tables at once.

The BR
DTD = £230
Stars = $1005

I will be playing, $0.25/$0.50 on stars and £0.15/£0.25 cash on DTD, both 6 handed, as well as $0.25/$0.50 HU cash on DTD.
I will continue playing the stars $20 and $30 HU's as i think i generally go well in them.

I will update in a week or so with how the BR is coming along.

Stoke

2007-01-10T13:10:00.000Z

So, we set off for stoke at 6pm to make sure we got to the 8.45 cut off in time as last time traffic was very slow.

I got there and precided to watch Brent and Gibbo blow £52.50 and £40 respectively on blackjack, casino games have never tempted me. As EVERYONE always ends up playing til the death and cashing out for zip.

Anyway, we got there at around 8ish and met up with Daniel (Kinboshi) from BlondePoker, He was a generally nice guy and took away from the stereotype scouser in my mind. He had some interesting thoughts and is going to Copenhagen next week, so i wish him the best of luck. The screens flashed up with the seat numbers, and it turned out that neither Me, Brent, Rich, Gibbo or Daniel were on the same table of the 6 tables.

I got to table 6 seat 7 and played pretty tight to begin, mainly because the cards were dictating the way i could play, managed to find a 3c 4c after about 35mins and limped, most pots on this table were played for a 7-8 X BB raise, but this pot wasnt for once, about 6 limpers saw the Ac 5h Qc flop, I bet out 400 and get an insta call behind me, and the drunken button calls. The turn comes the Jc and i bet out 600, again and insta call behind me, and the button now folds. The river comes the Qs and i decide to bet 1000 as i think he must have A8 or something and this is probably the most he'd pay me off, turns out he called with AT and i took down a good size pot, taking my 8000 starting stack to around 10,000.

Then i just went dead, i couldn't catch ANYTHING finally a limp with Ah6h in LP allowed me to turn aces up and win a pot vs 88.

I got to the break with 9125, not too bad from the first period. I was hoping my table would be broke up soon so i could move onto a table full of loads of passive fish that we saw last time we came. Then my dream came true and i got moved to Brents table, the table of passivity, limp, limp, limp all over the shop.

As soon as i got here, i turned it on and managed to double my stack without showing a hand, pots got so big as at the 300/600 level with 5-6 limpers. Instantly betting 800-1200 on the flop usually takes it down. At this point i was up to 16,000, then Brent got moved and it all went south.

A poorly played, unobservant hand by me arose leading me to lose 4000:

LP raises to 1600
ME (SB) calls (Ac Th)
BB calls

FLOP - Ks Jd 4h

ME checks
BB checks
LP checks

At this point i know a bet on the turn will take it when looking at the LP raiser, but unfortunately i did not look at the BB and im sure i could've picked up something as he was a player i refer to as 'Tell City'.

ME bets out 2500
BB raises all in for 6500
LP folds
ME folds

This hand was very poorly played on my part but most times on this table, it would pick up the 4800 in the pot.

Soon after i bust out still being aggresive with an Ah Jh and making to 2200 of my 8000 stack, the next guy moves in and its folded back to me, i thought for a while, not wether i was ahead obviously, but whether he had 99 or 1010, something i am willing to gamble against, i called with my remaining 5200 and he turned over AdKd, I lost, and i deserved to, really bad play at the end of the tournament but i'm feeling good about my game.

Now i want to leave the most interesting hand, for me til last. I limp with KTos and the flop comes J J T, the BB bets out 600, and its folded to me, i decide to both try find out where i am, and look like i have a strong hand so i min raise to 1200. It gets folded back to him, and he makes it 2200 (1600 more) Now if he had a J here, this is exactly what he would do, so i insta folded. He then turned up K7os and commented that id been playing everyhand and outaggressing everyone, and obv he didnt want to be pushed around. I have developed my game to know pretty much what people have bye there betting patterns, BUT now its time to work out whether people actually have the goods they are representing. I'm not talking about obv bluffs when i can re-raise in an instant, but re-re raise bluffs when they have played it like a monster. I should have took the time to stare down this player, and i think i could have worked it out. Thats an aspect of my live game i need to sort out.

I was happy to see Brent go on and take down £80 for 6th place. He played a fantastic game and i managed to rail him for most of his game when i had bust.

Anyway a £25 loss for the day, but could be worse after watching Gibbo do about £80 off at BlackJack.

My live winnings this year (4 torns) now total £284, with £294 profit in Tournys and a £10 loss in a quick cash session.

I thoroughly enjoyed our 2nd trip to stoke, and would return in a minute. Players are treated fantastically and valets are round every 10 minutes offering the complimentary soft drinks which make the £5 buy-in fee well worth the money.

Not much to report online today, i will do an update after a few days playing $0.25/$0.50 HU cash on DTD and some $0.25/$0.50 and $0.50/$1.00 6 handed cash on stars.

I have the start of the league of Leeds Grosvenor coming up tonight (£10 double chance 5000 pts) where first in the league recieves a trip for 2 to monte carlo...

2007 begins...

2007-01-08T12:03:00.000Z

I've been playing poker for over 2 years now, and still love it.

It all began in college when i saw a few guys in the year above playing round a table, i had seen the game played on TV and this intrigued me. A guy i hardly knew called Brent asked me and a few friends to play (a moment that could have a huge impact on my life). From this second i was hooked and there was no going back. The buzz of coming home and emptying all this shrapnel out of your pocket!
Then as the months went by, home games with real chips started, casino visits and soon the shrapnel being taken out the pockets was hundreds of pounds.

I've always been one to update records effectively so writing progress on here shouldn't be an issue.

I will be playing online on Pokerstars with a $1000 bankroll and on Dusk Til Dawn (Cryptologic) with a £200 bankroll.

Live games i enjoy are at the Leeds Moortown grosvenor casino, where they have a great £10 double chance FO with 5000 chips. I enjoy playing there with my friends Brent, Steele, Rich and Gibbo, we usually ship it home no problem.

I recently went on holiday to Australia and staying in the Star City casino for 4 nights, this is the most live cash game experience i've ever had, i sat at the $80 NL tables ($1/$2 blinds) for 4 nights and managed to turn a $301.25 profit. I was happy with my introduction into the live cash game world, as my only previous experience was a £1/£1 game at Leeds gala for 10 mins and a £1/£1 at Grosvenor Walsall for an hour.

I have been to a few places playing including Leeds Gala, Grosvenor Leeds Moortown, Grosvenor Walsall and Grosvenor Stoke. Me and Brent enjoy going on roadtrips down south to play. And im looking forward to writing trip reports after each one we go on. The next scheduled trip is tomorrow, tuesday the 9th for the £25 FO with a fantastic structure and grosvenor stoke. We have gibbo accompanying us to this one and maybe Rich if he gets it together.

So thats the story so far, From £0.10/£0.10 cash games in college, to HU winners at bB3 to regular casino winners, to grinding with australia's best (or worst).

I hope i can take you all on an emotional journey over the next year, im sure there will be highs and sick lows, just got to get through it all and see what it changes in me.