So on Wednesday I managed to take down the SCOOP High 1k/rebuys event, for $205,110!

The tourney went slowly and smoothly from start to finish - I played quite carefully throughout and won the important hands when I needed to.

I ended up beating David Benyamine headsup, with Steve Sung coming 3rd - it was interesting playing shorthanded with live players whose betsizes and math related play were far less optimal than mine, but who were using creative and unorthodox lines at different times to kinda stay afloat.

I got really lucky with about 15 people left when my AQs beat Amak's KK after 4betting allin preflop - this gave me a commanding stack and also knocked out probably the best player still in the field.

It was a long grind and I was exceptionally proud of how I played, I thought I held my own throughout - though of course I was very lucky, even in the final hands, where I won a big flip with TT vs Sung's AQ and then coolered Benyamine to win the tournament with straight vs set on J754...

I really enjoyed playing these last couple of weeks, and it's going to be weird not to be getting up at 3:30 am and getting a redbull out of the fridge to kick off the day.

Obviously I had a good series overall, and I feel really good about poker at the moment.

There's a ton of variance in this game, but it's amazing how often when you DECIDE you are going to win, and you put in the requisite effort, things come good for you (as opposed to when you are simply going through the motions, and hoping for the chips to fall the right way).

I said to my girlfriend if that tournament had been held on the first day of SCOOP I wouldn't have won, but because it was 10 days in and I'd been sharpening and refining my game 12 hours a day for 2 weeks straight, I was tuned in enough to channel the good fortune I had into a win.

Anyway, I guess I have to go back to the real world now and finish off the uni semester.

I'll probably come back and write here from time to time, I hope you all had a good SCOOP - what a great exercise in profitable degeneracy it always is

Well it's been 4 months and I've been playing a lot of poker lately so it seemed like a good time to write a bit of an update.

I'm settled in Melbourne and really enjoying it - uni is going really well (88% of the people doing my course are female!) and for most of the year I haven't been playing much online poker at all.

I play fairly high stakes poker live twice a week or so, Crown Casino is in the city and a short walk from my university so I walk down after class when there's a game on (usually either 25/25/50 PLO or 25/50/100 NLHE).

I've run pretty poorly overall, and have lost a lot of big pots in memorably sickening ways the last few months but I think I'm roughly breaking even for the year.

I've been buying pieces/staking more than usual too, but so far all my horses are losing.

I started really missing donkaments recently and I'm 3/4 through the semester at uni and getting good grades, so I handed in a couple of things early so as to be able to essentially take three weeks off - one week to practice for SCOOP and then two weeks for SCOOP.

The practice week went poorly but seemed to do the trick, as I got my eye in and the day before SCOOP started I finally won a tournament, a $55 cubed for $5k or so.

Since then I have gone on a huge tear, and had winning days nearly every day this week - I won the $1002R1A two days in a row, won the $40k gtd, chopped the UB 1K for 32k, got 4th in Party Highroller last week and 2nd this week (8k/18k), and got 12th in the 1500r PLO (13k).

Paid a lot in entry fees too obviously but I'm still up quite a lot, and I won a bunch live the last two times I played (though I was coming off a big live downswing).

Another whole week of SCOOP to go and though I'm exhausted my game is really sharp at the moment and I'm ready to give it a good shake.

It's gonna be hard to detach after the week is over, but I've been much happier this year spending my time going to uni and hanging out with my girlfriend... my plan for the rest of the year is to keep doing what I'm doing but also play most Sundays online and keep playing live after class as it doesn't disrupt my schedule too much.

I'll play a bit of PLO cash online too but that's more of a when I feel like it, 10k hands a month type thing.

So yeah, I'm still alive and all is going well

Gonna start off with the cliff notes here: I have decided to delete this blog and officially stop making videos.

It has obviously already been a while since I made a video, and I haven't coached for a long time, but over the last few weeks I decided for sure to officially step away from the site.

It has nothing to do with Leggo or anything like that, I have loved being a part of the site and it's something I'm extremely proud of (I still remember how incredibly nervous I was before making my first video!) plus I've come in contact with some great people and some incredible minds thanks to the experience.

It's just that, as anyone who knows me or has followed my blog at all is probably already aware, I have yearned to move away from having poker as my first priority in life for quite a long time now, and retiring from Leggo is one of the steps for me.

A big part of it, without wanting to sound pretentious, is letting go of having a public image.

It's strange how that stuff can affect you and affect your goals, and make you feel like you have to keep proving over and over 'how good you are'.

Anyone who has ever been involved in any sort of competitive gaming will realise that this is something that never really ends, no matter what goal you reach there's a new one, no matter how much you've already achieved there's the threat that you might fall behind the curve sometime soon if you don't keep working...

Even just something small like writing in a blog about results or goals affects and puts pressure on you, I think it's something a lot of people are guilty of in different ways in the internet age (like say on Facebook where people sometimes do things to some degree so they can status update them or post photos later... it's kind of the same thing).

I also took making videos pretty seriously and only ever wanted to make them if I felt I was ahead of the curve enough to justify having the right to instruct.

It's that stuff that I'm letting go of, I really just wanna feel like random civilian, go to uni play some music on the side play some poker on the side - whatever.

I am going to Aussie Millions in a couple of weeks and I'll definitely be around the place at some events in Australia and online here and there (hopefully luckboxing) but it's just a priority/pressure related thing for me.

So yeah it's been great, extra special thanks to Greg/Matt/Aaron for always being encouraging and complimentary, and honestly I have the deepest respect for every one of the video producers...

I'll see you all at the tables and stuff.

Farewell!

I have been in Sydney since last Tuesday night, the first leg of my three week holiday spanning the APPT Grand Final and then a short Extortion tour in Melbourne/Adelaide.

There has been a big PLO game running, it starts as 25/25/50 uncapped but often morphs into 25/25/50/100 or 50/100/200 (or when it gets 3 handed, 50/100/300).

I've run hot so far and am up about $170k.

It's been insanely epic, I have played through til 10am three of the nights (aka until none of the fish have any money left).

Shorthanded PLO is a beautiful game, though really I am barely competent and mostly getting paid for already having money if you get what I mean.

The tournaments went terribly, I never caught a break in any of them, meh.

Holdem sucks!

I've had a weird couple of weeks, I was offered a place on Poker Stars 'Team Online' for next year, a 30 man squad they are bringing in of pseudo red-pros.

It was obviously pretty tempting to take the deal but I am determined to change my life next year and essentially committing to getting paid to go for Supernova Elite would be a pretty massive backwards step in that regard.

Strange the way life works sometimes, sponsorship was something I wanted and hoped for most of the past year or so, and then just as I moved on from that an opportunity presented itself.

Felt a lot like the devil on my shoulder, or 'just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in."

Butnahhhhhh, it just wasn't the right decision for me at this point in my life.

I got an early offer for Psychology at RMIT which was my second preference, so I know for sure now I'll at least be able to do that next year - but hopefully I'll get in to Uni of Melb when the main round of offers go out.

Am applying to rent a house in Fitzroy North with two friends over the next few days as well, so things are moving forward nicely!

So I guess it's been a while since I updated...

Mostly things have been continuing along the same trajectory - I failed the driving test again (fourth time) and have been putting in a lot of work at PLO.

I moved down to straight 2/4, and cut out mixing in small sites, and started logging at least 1k hands every day.

This week I finally caught the upswing I felt I was starting to deserve and I won 20 buyins over the last 3 days.

Very satisfying to get some results after putting in so much work, and yeah lol variance and all of that - I'm sure I was running bad before and I'm sure I'm running good now - but I have improved hugely even just in the past two weeks.

I haven't played a donkament in the last month or so, and even though things have gone far from perfectly I'm pretty happy with the progress I've been able to make lately.

The next couple of months are gonna be pretty hectic, I'm going to Sydney on Tuesday for two weeks for the APPT, then I'm going on a small three-show tour of Melbourne/Adelaide with Extortion.

Then I'll be back home for xmas before trying to find a house in Melbourne over the new year - ideally I would like to have papers signed before Aussie Millions (I know this is a bad time to try and find a house!).

Then by the time AM is over I'll only have a couple weeks before uni starts.

So pretty much the next 2 months are mapped out, it makes me feel better about things now that I have some plans and structure in mind.

Poker wise I'd be pretty happy to be a lazy 5/10 PLO reg next year while focusing on uni, I really want to get top marks and try and study overseas in 2011.

And you know, I feel good about not playing online donkaments anymore but it'd be nice to win something at the APPT

Got back my STAT (mature age university entrance test) results - I scored top 1% of population for the comprehension part/top 3% for the written essay part.

Pretty happy with those, especially after the driving failures, and should get into my first preference: Bachelor of Science majoring in Psychology, at the University of Melbourne.

Poker has been going terribly, cashgame wise I've played 11k hands this month for a 57k loss, tournament wise I'm maybe up 25k.

On the positive side I have been working pretty hard on my Omaha game, and even though I've been getting completely and utterly raped I feel like I am making good progress.

The other night I went and saw Nick Oliveri play an acoustic set, he was wearing an Extortion t-shirt and said on local radio here we're the best band he's seen in the last 10 years (lol).

Speaking of which, I'm going to be going on tour and playing some shows for the first time in ages in December - we are playing in Adelaide a few days after APPT Sydney.

There's a $2500 tournament here in Perth this weekend too, I even went down to play the $550 teams event with a friend for fun today but they inexplicably wouldn't let us register 20 minutes before the tournament was due to start, even though there were plenty of seats left (lol).

First things first, I failed my driving test again.

This time it wasn't even close, I never stood a chance.

Got another one booked for three weeks time - sigh...

I have been feeling a little down lately, and I realised it's because I've been spending all my time doing things that I am not very good at.

I am used to spending a lot of my time playing poker, and getting the positive reinforcement from knowing I am playing well, as well as posting in various forums and getting a lot of positive feedback from that too.

But lately I haven't really been playing at all, and I haven't been reading much poker either.

Aside from the failed driving, I've been spending my time doing a combination of other normal person stuff like exercising, non-seriously pseudo dating a couple of girls (never really done this, was previously an all or none guy) going out (I've started actually planning weekends in advance!) and trying to keep my life relatively organised.

I haven't felt like I've been making that much progress, and I was starting to feel quite negative, but not quite sure why, until I realised that I'm just used to getting a lot more positive reinforcement in my day to day life.

Realising that and then reconciling with myself that I'm doing an ok job and that it's a transition period, and I should be putting forth a stronger effort in some areas but it's ok because it's a long term thing, has been really good.

Today I went for a jog in the park, I am planning on doing this a lot more often.

I played 2k hands of PLO also, and won 6k, which would be nice except that I lost 12k yesterday.

I think if I can run just a little further with each passing couple of days, and can start to consistently log some hands at non-donkament forms of poker, I will start to feel more productive.

Looking back, I've actually done quite a good job since I've been back home.

It's just been so strange doing all this stuff that I'm not very good at, and not getting immediate reward for any of it.

I've been listening to heaps of new music, the new Converge album is amazing, as is Raekwon - Cuban Linx II and I really enjoy listening to The xx - xx.

Three very different sounds (extreme metal/hardcore, dark hip hop, downbeat/dreamy/melancholy indie) but three amazing albums that all came out in the past couple of months.

Nas is playing a street festival in Perth this weekend, should be awesome!

I played the Sundays again this week, it went absolutely awfully until right at the end when I wound up winning a $13k Aussie Millions package on Cake after getting outplayed in the small pots headsup (1 seat) and getting it in bad preflop all three times and winning all of them, lol.....

Rest of the night went so badly that if I profited at all for the night it wasn't much though.

Went to see Slayer last night, was a bit weird being the whole huge stadium thing...

Maybe I was too wasted but it felt like they weren't even playing their instruments, was just so disconnected from it.

Ah well. Slayer fucking rule and it was just a couple of hours of my life, whatever.

In failing at life news my phoneline got disconnected today for the second time in a couple of months, this time over a $93 bill.

Good times - why wouldn't you disconnect my phoneline after a couple of weeks of nonpayment of a double digit bill?

I decided tonight to delete all the people on my facebook friends list that I don't know irl.

I have a bit of a duality going where I play donkaments and have a poker blog and post on various forums and stuff but I don't actually want that much attention, I like the thought of being respected especially by my peers but it's a bit weird having that blend in with your real life world via facebook.

So anyway this seems like as good a place as any to say sorry if I deleted you, not personal I just want to keep my worlds separate

In other news, how fucking good is the latest season of Curb Your Enthusiasm?

How can a show with such a simple premise keep getting better and better?

Amazing.

I last took the driving exam in 2007 - I failed miserably after I nearly knocked over a speeding motorcyclist while changing lanes

After that I had a girlfriend who drove and then when that ended I went on the road for the past 18 months, basically.

So I never really needed or had to chance to take the test again until recently.

I've been practicing quite a bit, and getting a lot better, but I took the test again on Friday and still failed.

I actually got all the hard stuff right - nailed my reverse parallel park, did the driveaway turnarounds correctly and so on.

Basically the guy failed me for being too timid/not driving with enough conviction, he said I should be able to pass soon no problems but I was just not quite confident enough and a little bit too careful.

Turns out I am a nit at driving!

The next day I took my revenge on the STAT (mature age university entrance) test, and I think I did pretty well.

It was a two part test, first part comprehension second part written.

Back in High School I would have done ok in the comprehension and really good in the essays, but ten years of poker and the internet have sharpened my comprehension skills/dulled my writing skills considerably, so I was mostly worried about the written part.

I got lucky though and the two questions I wound up getting to write about were as follows:

a) The knowledge of ones self is the most important type of knowledge there is.

b) The internet, mobile phones and email have given shy people a chance to build relationships that would have previously been impossible.

Obviously, I pretty much hit the jackpot in terms of topics as I think about those things all the time, whereas it could have easily been something about say, politics or the environment, and I would have had a lot less to say.

Other than that, I got my freedom chair and it rules, so comfortable...

Got a new record player too and some really nice speakers.

Poker wise I haven't been playing much because of the tests, but I have been studying and playing a bit of Omaha Hi-Lo (I'm getting absolutely destroyed so far!)

I fell asleep with the new CeroZ video on loop earlier so for a few hours I had all this hi-lo terminology filtering in and out of my dreams, maybe that will help!

I'm pretty determined to beat up to 30/60 even if it takes ages, then I'm going to move on to the other games.

All in all things are good at the moment, staying in the one place and only playing donkaments once a week at most has been great.

I'm taking the driving test again in two weeks, other than that I'm just basically doing whatever I feel like day to day.

A while back I got a message that someone was going to name their new greyhound after me and put it in some races.

A couple of days ago got a followup message with the link to a pic of him and some information on his breeding and so on...

Thought you guys might like to see!

Filing this one under weird but cool =)