So I got back to Perth for the first day of Spring: sadly it was cold and rainy all day, which often isn't even the case here in winter!

Macau was ok, nothing went particularly well for the rest of the trip.

I got stacked by Joe Hachem again in a 500/1k HKD game (75/150 USD or so).

He threebet a straddler and I cold 4-bet from the SB with red kings - he flatted.

Flop came T73ccc, I bet a little over half pot, he called.

Turn was an offsuit deuce, I shoved for about 2/3 pot, he said "I have the nuts" and turned over AKcc... zzz.

Both remaining tournaments went badly, and I was happy to get out of there when the trip was over.

I did manage to continue my ludicrous gym streak however - I have worked out something like 14 of the past 18 days!

On the way home I missed my connecting flight to Perth and got stuck in Melbourne overnight, which was a little sad as not only did I really want to get home but it also forced me to reflect on my recent failed move, which wasn't something I wanted to think about too much.

It ended up being a good night though - I went and played the Sundays in Bond18's hotel room (brag: friends with a celebrity) and managed to final table both the Ongame majors, coming 2nd and 4th for a combined $35k!

The headsup match was so gross, I was owning the guy in all the small pots, and I got it allin for the tournament win with JJ vs his 88, then flopped rags... turn 8!

So I went back to grinding him down, got the chiplead again, and got it in for the tournament win with KT on T63 vs 96... turn brick... river 9!

Then I had 2bb left, but won a couple of flips to have 11bb again, and snapcalled his allin with 99 to see him turn over 89...

Obviously I lost that one too, lol, gg!

I am happy to be home, I plan not to get on another plane until December, I will just be seeing friends and laying low playing online and stuff.

I'm done chasing dreams for a while, back to my roots and the grindstone

Today I finished a very disappointing 31st at APT Macau.

From the first orbit I had decided I was going to win the tournament, and outside of a couple of isolated hands I felt like I played pretty amazing - I was really in the zone with table flow and all the small live poker things.

On pretty much all of my tables I managed to carve out what can only be described as an unfuckwithable image, which is always a good feeling.

The day started really well, I chipped up without really losing a pot or winning a big one... just a slow but steady flow of chips towards my stack.

I also got to bet/threebet Johnny Chan allin with air on a J52r flop which amused me greatly - cue "I'm sorry, John, I don't remember" etc.

Unfortunately, after the bubble burst, things went bad.

First I had that classic live poker situation where it's raised and then reraised allin before it even gets to you in the big blind, and you think to yourself the same thing every time as you go to look at your cards - "cmon AA" (but obviously you never have it).

Well today for the first time, I did!

Sadly I could not defeat my opponents TT on the board KKQ...J...9, which was the difference between having double the average stack with 33 left (final table televised, 400k USD for 1st) or having below average stack.

Then I shipped in AT for 27bb over a Johnny Chan hijack 3x open, which was probably awful, sigh

I overthunk it - it was the first hand back from break, two guys at the table had been sucking up to him before the hand was dealt, and first hand with new blind level so I thought his 3x didn't mean as much as he did bad oldschool shit like openlimp, 3.5x his threebets in position etc and thus could just be making a sloppy/lazy betsize with his whole range.

But in reality he's just a huge fucking whale who probably 2.5xed every hand in poker except AK JJ and TT but 3xed all of those, and he tried to get me off the hook but I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and could not get there vs his JJ.

So that was depressing.

I came home and went to the gym for the 5th time in 6 days (epic brag iyam), watched first episode of new season of Dexter (love the idea of John Lithgow as uber serial killer) and then finally made part one of my Sunday Mulligan recap video.

I have 2 days off before the APPT Macau starts, then there's a High Roller tourney after the APPT Main and then I'm heading to Perth for a while.

I am still on the fence about WSOP Europe, if I don't head there then I might take time off tournaments until December and get back into cashgame/real life mixture.

If I'm feeling motivated at all it will be hard to skip London though, lot of big tourneys.

I spent the last few weeks prolonging the already prolonged crossroads that I have been at for months now, in terms of where to live, what to play, etc.

I played all of the Vic Champs events, and cashgames whenever they were running big enough to bother with.

One night we played 10/20/40/100/300 with a three drinks on the spot minimum to enter the game and 4k max buyin, was stupidly fun!

I ran hot as well and won about 25k, hehe.

Another night the game got short and it was just two live pros (well actually one of them lost 900k online last month playing 200/400 PLO, haha!) playing 3 handed 50/100NLHE with Deldar, I got bored and decided to sit.

I made a couple of light calldowns vs live-pro lines and both of the live pros ended up quitting, leaving me headsup with Deldar.

I figured I was a dog as he's supposed to be the sickest and I'm some tourney donk who never properly learnt headsup, but whatever, who quits - and I was interested in talking to the kid anyway.

Turned out he's a huge nit and he said he's actually down lifetime at headsup and 6-handed - he won all his money by absolutely slaughtering full ring games, so I dunno how much of a dog I was, especially live.

We got it in pre with TT vs AK and he won, then an action player joined the game and the table instantly filled - think I got square or won a couple of thousand that night or something.

Tourney wise I blanked out after the winner take all thing, I guess I won a bit for the trip but cashgames went pretty bad overall (too many visionaries/luminaries/champions of the game...)

I decided at the last minute to come to Macau - and now that I'm here I can't believe I was ever considering not coming.

My god the games are soft here.

It's not what you might imagine either - there are hardly any bonafide asians at all - basically the makeup of players mostly consists of something along the lines of:

a) middle aged westerners that played a ton of satellites or used the trip as an excuse because they really wanted to fuck some asian whores

b) westernised asians (or asianised westerners) who live in HK/china/similar, who miss poker and come out to play some cards (or imagined they could cut it against the in reality non-existent local asian fish)

c) extremely mediocre, semi-competent 25-45 year old guys from all around the place (often Australia) who come to Macau whenever they get the opportunity because they know the action is good here and figure they might actually be able to win here instead of break even.

So really, it's an absolute dream.

APT was first up, and was around $4500 USD buyin.

133 players started day 1a, they are expecting more tomorrow - at the end of the day there were around 35 players left and I was 3rd in chips or so with 62,600.

It was a strange day that I don't feel like writing about too much.

I ran really hot for most of the day but feel like I should have more chips.

I missed some big draws, and had the nuts every time someone tank-folded in a big pot (despite my crazy image).

One hand a guy thought for 4 minutes before folding king high on a river of 86266! (I had QQ)

I also nearly made a really big call and then didn't, and was shown a bluff.

I had T9 on QJ3TA, it was 3bet preflop bet on the turn and bet on the river.

I checked the river with the intention of calling, but then he bet the exact same amount on the river as he had on the turn - which I had NEVER seen as a bluff live before!

Anyhow, happy to have made day 2.

I am planning on playing a ton of cash here too - going all out - and then heading back to Perth afterwards.

Think I'm done with Melbourne until some of my other friends move over.

I wanna go home and get my drivers license, maybe learn to cook, drink beer with my friends, just normal person stuff.

Apologies about lack of video btw, I haven't really been online much

Well it seems my downswing was shortlived - after posting yesterday I played online and won about 6k playing cash before shipping the 55 cubed for $11k, which brought me to about even for the day (20k AUD is somewhere in the vicinity of 15k USD).

Then I got a nice sleep in before playing the $25k SNG at Vic Champs, there were 8 runners and I was very confident in the field.

I got to play with Deldar182 live for the first time which was cool, we played a bunch of pots together and I won pretty much all of them which was cool too!

He played really good though, we mostly took turns chipping up but I was lucky to have position on him so I got to run some plays knowing that he couldn't ever really justify rebluffing me when there was so much value just in continuing to have a seat at the table.

There were no antes and 20 minute levels so even though we started with 400bb it was a bit of a crapshoot but one of those good crapshoots where people fold so often and bluff so little that it's actually just as profitable as a normal tournament.

I won 2 crucial flips vs Deldar with 55 vs his A9 both times, the second time to bust him in 3rd place meaning I would go into headsup with 85k in chips vs an opponent with 115k chips.

My opponent Bill Jourdanou had been shortstacked most of the tournament before he won AK vs my QQ, 55 vs my KQ, AQ vs my J9, and AJ vs my AK (for most of the chips in play) all in quick succession to wind up the chipleader.

We agreed to an even chop 100k each which turned out to be prudent seeing as very first hand of headsup I openshoved QJ and he looked down at Aces! (we were playing it out as there was a badass trophy, and also the right to have a 200k score officially listed)

So yay for upswong, and this week there's a good event every day... gamble gamble!

I'm in Melbourne and Vic Champs leadup events have started, with decentsized cashgames forming most days.

Yesterday I moved out of where I had been staying and down to a room at Crown, and spent the afternoon getting a bunch of money out of the bank (couldn't be bothered making up a story this time so when they asked why I needed such a large amount of money straight away and in cash, I told the truth: 'I feel like gambling').

I rolled in to Crown and registered for the $25k winner take all SNG that's running tomorrow, and then sat down with $45k at a 25/25/50 HA game with occasional restraddling to 25/25/50/100/200.

45 minutes later I had no chips left...

I lost a 65k pot with A8ddA8 in a 5 way squeezed preflop pot on Qx7d2d vs QQxx where I made a mistake squeezing preflop because I didn't realise that the one opponent that covered me that wasn't on tilt had just gotten back from a long break that very hand and had posted and checked, and I lost a 34k pot vs Joe Hachem after "squeezing" big preflop with black Aces, getting a speech from him, and then getting it in vs his flush draw on K97cc and losing.

Hachem is a pretty big nit and it was maybe a marginal spot, I dunno.

Then today I showed up and one guy at the table called his friend to tell them that I was in the game, lol

I sat with 20k this time which covered everyone, then had JTcc oop on Qc8c3, checkraised a c-bet to 875 after having threebet preflop probably 5-6 times in the past 2 orbits, he made it 2200 with 7k behind, I put him in and he thought for 3 minutes and then finally called with 333, zzz... Brick brick of course.

And then I got 84 allin on 854 vs AA for my last 7k and lost, and had to quit in shame with no live cash left for the second day in a row, SEABEAST confirmed busto obviously.

Tomorrow I am playing a $25k winner take all SNG with Deldar182 and a bunch of fish basically, should be interesting haha...

Not sure if Deldar would chop at all seeing as he flips for so much so often, so playing headsup for 250k vs 0 could be pretty mental.

I'm going to keep staying at Crown and playing cashgames a lot, I'm upset to be losing and will be grinding hard next week.

So today I played the Sundays for the first time since I won the Mulligan.

It's been a really good break and I've recharged well for the insanity that will be the next 2 months of poker - Vic Champs/FTOPS at same time, then Macau, then WCOOP, then WSOP-E/EPT London, all with virtually no break.

I felt like playing last night, so I scheduled my flight to Melbourne around all-nightering, and it went well.

I came 3rd in the Full Tilt 150R for 35k (which was very satisfying as I've never had a good result in that tourney before, the nit in me hates knowing in the back of my mind I'm down lifetime at something) and I came 3rd in the Stars 1092R1A for another 11k... plus I had an 8th in a smaller thing and a 16th in the 200R for 2k each.

So overall I cashed for a little over 50k and I guess made 40 plus change in profit, pretty sweet back to back Sundays hehe.

Soon I will be heading to the airport to fly to Melbourne where I will be looking at some rental properties and hoping to snap one up as soon as possible.

I'm really, really looking forward to playing some live poker again soon too.

I want to win something badly.

Should have multi-part videos going up consistently again from next week onwards by the way!

I'll write a longer entry when I'm in Melbourne and have slept.

Yessssssss

Since I last updated a week or so ago I've only played poker once - last Sunday where I had a good online session, winning another WSOP Seat and coming 7th in the 200 rebuy.

On Monday I got up early and flew to San Francisco for a much needed break from Las Vegas.

I have been having a good time in the desert, and actually been quite healthy while out here all things considered.

Nevertheless, Vegas is an exceptionally frustrating place to spend a month, and a cultural wasteland, so a trip to SF for a few days was a welcome change.

I had a secondary reason for heading out there too - picking up my ex-gf/permanent bff/frequent travel wife Bonni, who I flew out here to hang out with me for the rest of the trip.

We went and saw a couple of bands (Grizzly Bear, Isis) and did a bunch of shopping/exploring/etc.

Had an amazing time, life-affirming even... what a great city.

Tough to come back to Vegas afterwards, though I had missed poker a little and was excited to play the $1500 yesterday (until I found out it sold out the night before).

Instead we went to Okada for Teppenyaki (was awesome) and then XS for MonsterDong's 21st.

We drank quite a lot of sake/wine before we even got to the club so our partying was um, spirited... and today I am lazily playing the Sundays with roughly zero enthusiasm.

There's only a few WSOP events left now - I might not even play the $1500 on Monday because it would suck to miss the $5k 6-max on Tuesday, and then after that all there is is the Main Event.

I'm gonna play Day 1a so that if I bust out I can head to New York asap - I've never been, and always wanted to, really badly.

Then I'm probably going to Chicago, and I have no idea what I'm doing after that.

I don't really know what my life is anymore, I have no home and no real plans either... nothing to go back to.

I found out I can't get into uni mid-year like I had hoped, and I left all my bands behind to move to Melbourne, so I really have absolutely no ties whatsoever.

There's more live stuff - Macau, WSOP Europe, Vic Champs, so I guess I'll just keep doing what I've been doing for a while.

It'd be nice to have a home but I don't know where, Melbourne is so unappealing at the moment with all its cold weather and past romantic failures.

I'm sure I'll come around, but right now I dunno.

I guess I can play the circuit until it's Spring in Australia and then try and start again (again) in Melb, that seems like a good plan.

Played the Sundays yesterday, I came 9th in the first $100 rebuy (one of my favourite tournaments).

I was chipleader for most of the way from 100 left to 25 left but then I called SB's 12bb jam with KT and lost to 96, got AQs allin for 20bb vs KK and lost, and went card dead for ages while all the random Euros nitted it up trying to make the final table.

They blinded down so hard that by the time the final table rolled around there were 5 stacks under 15 big blinds...

I jammed JT from MP for my 10bb and got called in the BB by A6s and did not win.

Couple other mincashes for the day meant I probably broke even or so.

Today I went down to play the $2k NLHE, rolled in half an hour late and decided I was hungry enough to go get an omelette and a coffee to prepare myself for what could easily be a long day.

5 minutes into the second level I casually strolled over to my table feeling good, and I recognised some of the faces: Dennis Philips, Theo Tran, ADZ124... Interesting table.

First hand I'm dealt in ADZ opens to 350 utg at 50/100.

Young guy calls, Middle aged guy calls, I look down at KK and make it 1650.

It folds around, ADZ tank folds, then young guy re-calls, and we're headsup to the flop.

It comes 972 - he check-raises me allin.

Fine, whatever, I call... He has AA.

GG!

Went to the gym on the way out of the Rio and that was it, my day done in just one hand after 4 days off!

Kinda fiending to play again now so I'll be there at everything else that's on this week.

I am feeling really burnt out after all the live poker the last two weeks.

Going deep in the 6-max was super fun and stimulating, but really exhausting.

The last couple of days were the first days in Vegas so far that I've felt 'over it'.

I couldn't be bothered playing today and I don't think I'm playing tomorrow either, the 10K Headsup would be fun to indulge in but I think I'll leave it to the experts and I really don't have the energy to grind a $1500.

I played some online cash today though, to try and get myself back into it.

Ran pretty good too, won a buyin each at 10/20 PLO 10/20 NLHE 5/10 NLHE and 2/4 NLHE for a 7k day - turns out cashgames are easy!

Jokes aside though, I've been feeling very uninspired when it comes to poker for quite a while now.

I really hit a wall when I won the $750k Guaranteed in March.

A part of me died, winning that.

I was so driven, for so long, to get as good as I could at MTTs, and to play every big tournament until I won one.

On some level after winning that I felt like I had clocked MTTs, and the game was over, so poker went back to being very boring again because I had essentially accomplished everything I aspired to and didn't have any goals anymore.

Getting to Vegas and playing the $40k was the kick I needed, to get back into the zone and care about poker.

I started dreaming of winning a live tournament, and more importantly, aspiring to get better at live play.

I started thinking about hands again after I played them, thinking about my own weaknesses and how to improve, how to adjust to the fields, and so on.

For the first time in a few months, I felt the fire to compete, and to improve.

But all I can feel right now after all the grinding the past few weeks is exhaustion.

I think I'll get it back though, I'm quite interested in live poker at the moment - both live cash and live tournaments.

Anyway, in the theme of putting some actual poker content in this blog I'll post a couple of hands from the 6-max.

First one took place vs James Sudsworth, a tough and aggressive British player that plays 25/50 on euro sites, who I had been battling throughout the day and who had been getting the better of me a little bit situationally but still probably respected my play.

He raised utg to 29k at 6k/12k with 400k to start the hand.

It folded around to me in BB and I took a flop with 64cc.

His opening range was very wide even utg, and I had been flatting his button raises on an earlier table from the BB with hands like KQ, KJ, KT, QJ, QT, JT - he had seen me do so 3-4 times.

The flop came T99 with two diamonds one club.

I checked and he quickly checked behind.

The turn came the 2 of clubs, I bet 39k and he raised to 110k leaving ~250k behind.

I felt like he would think I had a draw quite often, but that I would quite often shove over his raise with my draws.

I also felt like he was good enough to make this play with a ten for value, and snapcall my shove.

Was a tough spot but I decided to fold (turned out he had 33 and said he would have folded to my shove).

Another hand: I got moved to a new table when we redrew for seats with two tables left and 20 minutes left in the day.

A player I hadn't played with yet in the event who looked like a fish (middle aged Mexican-American) opened to 29k utg.

He got flatcalled from MP by another weak player, who I had been playing with and getting the better of on the other table.

They each had around 400k to start the hand, and as it is folding around they started having a friendly non poker conversation with a complete absence of any kind of nerves or seriousness from either side (implying neither of them really had anything).

It folded around to me in the BB and I looked down at A9o, and decided to squeeze.

I made it 117k, but surprisingly after a few seconds the original raiser flatcalled (for close to 1/3 his stack).

Other guy folded, and we were headsup to the flop.

I decided to give up unless I flopped a monster, putting him on a range of roughly AQ, AA-TT, weighted towards AA AQ and JJ.

The flop came 643 rainbow.

I checked, and he checked behind.

The turn came a 9.

I checked, and he strangely bet 65k into 280k.

I called.

The river came a 7.

I checked, and he went allin for 220k into 410k.

I thought for a long, long time (the longest I've ever thought about one street before).

It felt like he could be bluffing postflop but I just couldn't put him on enough hands preflop for 1/3 his stack that he could have turned into a bluff, was he really sitting there with AQ trying to get me off AK?

The bet was for half my stack, and if I folded I would still be in quite decent shape.

Eventually I folded; he SLAMMED down JTs and yelled 'THATS WHY IVE ALREADY CASHED FOUR TIMES THIS SERIES!'

If I got either of those right I would have been 3/11 going into Day 3 instead of 8/11.