Thanks to anyone who read my last blog post and came back for more! I usually update pretty regularly so keep coming back!!

Tonight I'm going to a friend's house for cards. I really hate playing cards with friends now so I'm hoping there'll be plenty of drinking going on! We sometimes say that if you win a pot with AA or Q3 (a legendary hand within our group) and show your cards you have to neck a shot. I'm hoping that's the case tonight.

I haven't seen much of the guys who are hosting recently. I went to Vegas a few summers ago with three of them but we've probably only caught up around four or times since then. This is partly due to the fact that they're kind of friends of a friend and we didn't hang out all the time anyway, and partly due to the fact that they're good friends with my ex-girlfriend and her friends, and are normally at their pub if they're out. Oh, and they all hate me.

I had a pretty bad start to this month poker-wise, so I've been sticking to mainly 3/6 until I feel like playing any 5/10 and 10/20 again. It's been going well in the last few days, and I definitely feel like I'm playing well. I'll probably try and post some of the more interesting hands from my next few sessions, although I'm not sure how much I'll get to play today or tomorrow.

On a bad note, I seem to have become addicted to an English tv show called The Bill. It's a police drama series that I used to watch when I was about 12. Well, I caught an episode the other day and can't stop watching it now. I have it to record on my Sky Plus, but it's only on twice a week - and that's not enough for me - so I started recording the reruns on UK Gold as well! Extremely sad.

Hi all,

I'm Martin from Derbyshire, England. I've kept a blog for the last year or so at http://www.dodgyken.blogspot.com/, so feel free to go check that out if you want any more info on me. I'll give a quick introduction here as well.

I'm 26 and I've been playing No Limit since around March/April 2007. I'd played other games for a few years (limit and PLO mainly), but decided then that I wanted to have a go at learning NL. I'd just quit my job as a teacher after going mental (I'll save that for another blog entry), and I made a decision to take time off until September. September's when the graduate jobs come out in the UK, and I had enough money saved up to live comfortably until then, so I decided to use that time relaxing, visiting friends, and learning NL.

It was definitely a great decision. By September I was making more than I did teaching, and I'd just started to improve at a quicker rate. I was dabbling in 2/4 and excited about where poker was going for me. I made another decision to not get a job. I looked at a few and realised I had no idea what I wanted to do, and also realised I was really enjoying doing what I was doing.

In September I ended up making just under $10k and was ecstatic! In October I made just under $15k and things were just going incredibly well. Then November came and I hit a really rough patch. The fact that I wasn't as good as I thought I was, coupled with hitting a poor run, led to me dropping quite a few buy ins. It took me a long time to come to the realisation that it was mainly my fault I was doing so poorly - it was one of Brian Townsend's videos that really made me think about it (when he talks about being accountable for your own results). I ended up deciding to get a coach to help me out.

I started with Nutedawg after reading on Matt's (Probability's) blog about how their sessions were going. Nute really figured out some things that were going wrong, and very quickly helped me to get my game back on track. This was probably the biggest turning point I've had since starting NL, and I'm extremely grateful to have found Nute when I did. From there December, January, and February exploded for me. I started playing 5/10 and some 10/20, ran hot, and made a lot of money!

Since February the year's been fairly mixed for me. I've spent around three months in America visiting friends, and it's not easy to play consistently well when you're on a ****ty laptop playing weird hours with other people around. I've been back home since mid July and I've really been enjoying getting back to grinding. My main games at the moment are 3/6 and 5/10, although I'll play anything I feel like in general.

Ok, this introduction was a little longer than I thought it would be - I do like to go on and on! I don't really have a plan for this blog, but I'll probably keep it similar to my old blog. I like to put some interesting hands in with my thought processes, I sometimes write about general poker concepts, and I harp on about random stuff too.

Thanks if you happen to have read all of this!

Dodgy